Mathare is robbers’ paradise due to unemployment, drugs

MATHARE/SCREENGRAB

Despite years of police efforts to arrest the surging tide of crime in Mathare, the informal settlement still remains one of the hotbeds of violent crime in Nairobi.

Though a living reality for most residents, the wave of criminality in Mathare came to the national limelight on Tuesday when President William Ruto visited the area as part of his Nairobi tour.

Scores of marauding men staged a robbery spree along the streets and major roads, including Thika Superhighway.

Wielding knives, metal bars and other weapons, the men made away with phones, handbags and other valuables of innocent members of the public.

Residents say the Tuesday occurrence is not isolated as they live daily with the risk of getting mugged and losing everything.

You are lucky to walk away alive and without serious harm. Worse, says WJ, the violent youths mostly under the influence of drugs stage their brazen crimes in broad day light but the risk rises at the fall of dusk.

MN has been a victim of the crime. It was in December last year when he had just finished his work as a matatu tout at 9pm and was walking a stretch of 10 minutes to his house.

Four young men jumped on him at a dark corner. They cut him with a sharp knife, leaving him with multiple injuries before making away with his watch, two phones and some cash he had in his pocket. They also took his jeans trousers, belt and shoes.

“They were young people I suspect aged between 16 and 20. I had several stitches on the wounds that kept me out of work up to February this year,” the father of two said.

MN had to relocate from Mathare after the traumatic incident. He blames joblessness, access to cheap liquor and hard drugs in the area.

Another resident who runs a vegetable stall shared her experience. “It is the norm in Mathare. These young men idle on the road to snatch phones and dash to the crowds and dark alleys. Others beat up their suspects and rob them of everything,” said Wanjiru, declining to be fully identified as she could be targeted.

The crime in Mathare was the subject of national press coverage years ago after plainclothes police officers would comb the area and use lethal force on suspects.

The cops would be stationed in the corners of the slum, infiltrate the groups of young men and burst the rings of drug smugglers and crime plotters.

They would use unmarked private cars for patrols to trail their suspects who would be plucked from the streets and bundled into the boots of the cars and spirited away.

But the crackdown triggered concerns among human right campaigners who accused police of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances.

The activism led to creation of social justice centres that document alleged police excesses.