The violence suffered by Migori residents before and after the August 8 election may have triggered four deadly cases of domestic violence this week.
Hopeless and traumatised residents transferred their anger to the home, an expert said.
“For four people to lose their lives violently in a week is not normal. We live in a society where marital violence, like political violence, has been tolerated,” Peter Gwengi, told the Star in Migori town on Friday.
He is a counsellor and director of Lake Victoria Initiatives, a public benefit organisation.
Gwengi said the cases were in Rongo, Awendo and Suna East subcounties, which bore the brunt of violence after the election.
“Political violence played a major role in imprinting violent tendencies in the public mind. Broken families and a culture of silence acted as triggers,” he said.
Migori was mapped as a violence hotspot and a huge number of police deployed just before the election.
After the presidential election results were announced, some officers brutally stifled peaceful protests.
On Wednesday, Jacob Owili, 35, bound his wife Lillian Awuor’s hands and legs and beat her for close to three hours before neighbours intervened.
She was pronounced dead at hospital.
Indifference to violence
The couple had fought over Owili’s plans to marry a second wife.
“Owili was angry after Lillian assaulted the young woman, took away their vehicle logbook, his passport and other documents after he came from abroad with the other woman,” a neighbour said.
Owili is on the run.
Rongo subcounty commissioner Pamela Otieno said residents still see domestic violence as normal as “three hours went by and neighbours and family members never intervened.”
She said neighbours always kept away when the woman was being assaulted.
An affair
Gwengi said, “We have seen and been close to violence for a long time in campaigns. Immediately politics is suspended, then the tendency goes to families.”
On Monday night, an unidentified man was lynched by a mob and his lover beaten in Ngege, Suna East.
Chief Michael Omuga said the woman’s sons laid a trap for the couple after they complained to their father that she embarrassed them.
“The woman had divorced her husband. The man [lover] tried to run away, but he was killed. He had a long affair with the woman,” he said.
On Tuesday morning, Kevin Otieno, 30, a teacher at Sagero Primary School, committed suicide in Onyalo estate after he complained his wife was running down the family businesses.
Family members said he was unhappy as he was the one repaying the loans used to set them up.
Last Friday night a butcher murdered his friend in Dede village, Awendo, after celebrating the Supreme Court ruling that nullified the presidential election.
Paul Aroko killed Philip Okiero at the home of a widow he inherited. Widow Dorothy Okombo found the body on her veranda in the morning.
Okombo’s family said Aroko often beats Dorothy and is violent to members who try to intervene.
Courtesy