The Mungiki are an outlawed “cult” in Kenya. However, despite their status the group is still active. Three people were killed in riots staged by the Mungiki this week, reports The Nation in Nairobi.
The Mugiki sect was founded in 1980 and advocates “traditional African values” such as female circumcision, regarded by many as mutilation.
The crackdown on the sect began last year when leaders were arrested. Many Kenyans have died since as a direct result of repeated confrontations with authorities and rival sects.
Africa’s cult problems reached a climactic point in 2000 when a doomsday cult in Uganda called “The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments” became the largest recorded cult murder/suicide in history.
About 1,000 members of the splinter schismatic Catholic group led by Joseph Kibwetere perished. No accurate count of the cult’s victims will ever be known, but the government recovered hundreds of bodies buried, burned and hidden by the group.
Since the Ugandan tragedy of 2000 African governments seem to have become more “cult conscious” and now appear to monitor the activities of violent and potentially dangerous groups closely.
The crack down on the Mungiki can be seen as an extension of this new commitment, which has included increased surveillance and law enforcement.
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