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Two more women hacked by husbands in copycat panga attacks


Two women are nursing serious injuries at the Nyahururu County Referral hospital after they were attacked by their husbands in separate incidents.

Zipporah Wanjugu, 32, is nursing serious injuries on both hands and head, which she sustained after her husband attacked her with a panga on Wednesday night at their home in Wiyumiririe village in Laikipia County.

Speaking from her hospital bed Thursday, Mrs Wanjugu said she had gone to pick her three-month-old baby from her estranged husband’s home when the the incident happened.

ON TV

In the second incident, 23-year-old Vivian Moraa, a labourer at Suera Flowers Company, claims her husband picked a panga and told her that he would chop off her hands ‘just like the other lady who was on TV”.

Ms Moraa, a resident of Suera area on the outskirts of Nyahururu town sustained serious head injuries after being battered by her husband.

She had disagreed with the man after she failed to share her wages, she claimed.

“After receiving my wages, I went home with household goods I bought from Nyahururu town and that angered my husband. He said that it was wrong for me to buy household goods and yet he had no money,” she said.

The incidents happened barely three days after another shocking incident in Machakos County where a man chopped his wife’s hands because ‘she could not conceive.’

Ms Jackline Mwende, 27, is nursing injuries on her head, neck, back and hands after her husband of seven years, Mr Stephen Ngila Thenge, 34, attacked her with a panga on Sunday evening. She lost both arms.

SEPARATE FROM HUSBAND

In the Nyandarua case, Mrs Wanjugu said she had domestic differences when she decided to separate from her husband.

“We separated with him two months ago only for him to storm into my rented house and take away the baby without uttering a word,” she claimed.

“I finished my work and went to pick the baby so that I could breastfeed him only for him to start insulting me before picking a panga which he used to attack me,” she said.

She said she woke up to find herself in a hospital bed and later fell unconscious.

A police officer at Ndaragwa police station who arrested the man said the attacker had poison in his pocket during the time of the arrest.

COMMIT SUICIDE

“After the incident was reported to us, we rushed to the scene and arrested the man. He had tried to commit suicide because he had poison in his pocket,” observed the police officer, who cannot be named as he is not authorised to speak to the media.

The victim claimed that the man had turned her into the sole breadwinner for their four children.

She said that before their separation, the husband had threatened her on several occasions saying he wanted both of them dead.

Maendeleo Ya Wanawake Laikipia branch vice chairperson Irene Wachuka, who was at the hospital, condemned the two incidences describing them as inhuman.

She said stern action should be taken against those who victimize others in marriage.

A doctor at the facility said that the two women are out of danger, but Ms Wanjugu’s left hand had been severely damaged.