TREE OF DEATH IN KENYA

There was a story in the kenyan press in the nation news paper about this tree .It was a weird and blood chilling story that is not far from the voo doos and human sacrifices that we have been hering about ,and the truth is that the story can not be far from witcraft ,soucery and religious miinformation.

A tree at Chaka trading centre in Nyeri has earned the reputation of the ‘tree of death’. Troubled people, some from as far as 20km away, are trooping to the trading centre to hang themselves from it.

Local police don’t know what to make of it. Villagers claim seven people have hanged themselves from that one tree in the past year. Police said they could only confirm two. Officers said Peter Muchiri, 25, and Stephen Gathara Kaburia, 40, hanged themselves on that tree within a month of each other.

The two came from Ruring’u, Nyeri, although they did not know each nor were they related, according to relatives. Mr Kaburia, a butcher, left home on a Friday to go and look for a cow for slaughter. He even called his wife, Ms Monicah Gathara Karaya, to say he would be home for lunch.

Four days later, he was found hanging from the tree of death, 20km from his home. The rope around his neck was the one he had carried to lead the cow back home. Police said nothing was stolen from him; even his phone was still in his pocket.

Locals said he was dropped off by a taxi a few metres from the place where his dangling body was found, although police investigators could not confirm this. Last week, Mr Karaya, 25, a lorry driver, was found hanging in the same spot.

According to his mother, Ms Tabitha Karaya, Mr Karaya had said he was going to Nairobi on the day he died. His lifeless body was later found on the tree of death. According to witnesses, his shoes were neatly arranged and the rope carefully slipped over the top of his pullover collar.

Same spot

In his pockets, police found a puzzling, roughly scribbled suicide note, thanking his young wife for giving him a baby boy before signing off with the words “Dhambi ni dhambi” (A sin is a sin).

Are the two deaths related or was it by pure coincidence that the two were found dead on the same spot? That is what police are trying to figure out. Relatives are mystified too. “As far as I know, the two did not know each other, and we are not related in any way,” says Ms Karaya.

“Now we know each other very well, although we are not related,” says Ms Monicah Gathara, Gathara’s wife, now a widow with three little children. Nyeri police boss Kirunya Limbitu described it as a strange coincidence. “It is puzzling. Normally, suicidal people kill themselves within their home area. These ones, it seems, travelled 20 kilometres to kill themselves,” he said.

Locals maintain five more bodies have been found hanging from that tree. Inevitably, it has become a source of fear and superstition. Some want it cut down, others swear never to touch a leaf of it. “I have seen four bodies removed from this spot. I think these trees here are cursed,” area resident Nderitu, 22, says. Police are asking the locals to volunteer information to help solve the case. They have opened inquest files, but there is not much in them.