Hundreds of people carrying clothing, cooking oil and other belongings fled a sprawling Nairobi shantytown Friday after a violent weeklong raid by police searching for a shadowy sect accused in a string of beheadings, REPORTED AP. Police have killed more than 30 people and arrested 300 since Monday in Mathare, believed to be a stronghold for the secretive Mungiki. The group was inspired by the 1950s Mau Mau uprising against British rule, but has become a street gang linked to murder, political violence and extortion. Residents loaded their items onto pickup trucks and wheelbarrows or simply carried them out of the Mathare slum's maze of dusty streets and wooden shacks. Many headed to the nearby Eastleigh neighborhood and found shelter in churches. «I have never witnessed in my life anything like what is happening,» Jane Wachira, a 37-year-old mother of three, told The Associated Press as she packed her bags. «My children and I are traumatized and could not sleep last night. We thought police might conduct another raid.» Authorities demolished homes, forced residents to kneel and were seen beating people with truncheons. Police say they have recovered three guns and human flesh believed to be used for Mungiki oath taking. Mungiki is accused in the deaths of at least 20 people in the past three months, including 12 found mutilated or beheaded since May. The group is accused of killing two police officers Monday. Mungiki claims to have thousands of adherents, all drawn from the Kikuyu, Kenya's largest tribe. Members of the group, whose name means «multitude» in the Kikuyu language, traditionally wear dreadlocks, inspired by the Mau Mau who wore them as a symbol of anti-colonialism and their determination not to conform to Western norms. In recent years, however, many Mungiki have shaved their heads, believing dreadlocks are too conspicuous. Sect members pray facing Mount Kenya, which the Kikuyu believe to be the home of their supreme deity. The group also encourages female genital mutilation and using tobacco snuff. Mungiki was outlawed in 2002 after at least 20 people were killed in fighting between it and another gang whose members come from the Luo tribe of western Kenya.
