Posted Wednesday, September 18 2013 at 00:00
In Summary
According to Katoro Ward Executive Officer
Peter Chota, the incident took place around midnight. The gang took
advantage of the fact that she lived alone.
On Friday night, 61 year-old Esther Mashenene
was hacked to death by a machete-wielding gang. She was killed on
suspicion of being a witch. The brutal assault took place at
Bugayambelele village in Katoro Ward, Geita, barely a week after a
number of women in Mara and Shinyanga were slain by unidentified
assailants.
This is unacceptable in a country governed by the
rule of law. Yet a terror gang known as Chinja Chinja (Butchers)
continues to spread fear and alarm in the Lake Zone with attacks on
elderly women. The killers break into their homes in the dead of night,
hack them and vanish.
According to Katoro Ward Executive Officer Peter
Chota, the incident took place around midnight. The gang took advantage
of the fact that she lived alone. They must not be allowed to get away
with it. In some places, advanced age is considered a blessing. The
elderly are cherished for their wisdom, not killed so heartlessly.
The Geita regional police commander, Mr Leonard
Paulo, has promised an investigation. Still, we must ask why such
attacks persist and why rabid gangs have been allowed to get away with
murder. Killings of old women in Geita, Mara, Mwanza, Simiyu and
Shinyanga regions are hardly new. They give Tanzania a bad name in much
the same way the killing of albinos for ritual purposes did.
SOURCE: MWANANCHI
