KENYA: Chief shot with arrow after female-cutting arrest

Genital cutting makes people do strange things


The Star (Kenya)
November 28, 2014

Kenya: Chief in Bomet Struck By Arrow Over FGM Arrests

A man in Bomet county allegedly shot a chief in the shoulder with an arrow on Wednesday morning for leading detectives to his village to arrest a circumciser and his two victims.

Lelaitich location chief, Robinson Rotich, was reportedly struck by the arrow amid a confrontation by rowdy youths after the team of police officers he led to a home in Kabolwo village arrested the initiates. The circumciser escaped.

County police commander Leah Kithei told the press in her office on Thursday that assistant chief Elijah Mutai informed his boss of the circumcision following a tip off from members of the public. The victims, two married women, were reportedly forced to face the cut.

Kithei said the women were escorted to the Legume police post after their arrest but that the chief and his assistant alighted on the way and were afterwards accosted by the youths.

The youths fled after one of them injured the chief who was rushed to the Tenwek mission hospital in Bomet Central division, she said. The arrow in his shoulder was removed and he was treated and discharged.

The women were taken to Longisa County Referral Hospital and will be charged for failing to report a crime after they recover, Kithei also said. [Blaming the victims....]

She reiterated that the ban on FGM is still in effect and warned husbands and parents forcing their wives and daughters to get circumcised that it won't be long before they are arrested and punished.

She appealed to residents to volunteer information that could lead to the arrest of the run-away circumciser, by the police who have launched a search, assuring them that it will be confidential.

Bomet county women's rep Cecilia Ngetich last week told KNA that over 113 girls among them married women had secretly been circumcised.