A special squad has been formed to focus on emerging crimes in Eastleigh, Nairobi. The team was created after a meeting of crime busters at the Directorate of Criminal Investigations headquarters on November 11.
There has been a surge in crime in the fast-growing area, warranting police attention. Most of the suspects are foreigners or returnees trying to make a living, who engage in extortion, robbery with violence, murder and stealing. Stabbing and torture are the most common vices.
Police say families are living in fear as some of their kin are targeted and tortured for ransom. “We have some victims in hospitals after they were attacked and stabbed by the gangs on the loose,” said an officer aware of the trend.
Suspects also harass locals and block roads to demand money from them. Some of the attackers are from Somalia and Ethiopia who live in Eastleigh, investigations show.
“We receive reports of extortion and torture almost daily and it is worrying.”
The new squad, drawn from DCI headquarters, Nairobi Region and other specialised units, has instructions to pursue and solve these cases.
The outfit will work with police officers and officials from the immigration department, who have been incorporated to swiftly address any emerging issues during the operations.
Apart from the robberies and extortion menace, five murder incidents have happened in the area in the past month alone.
Four of them involve an Ethiopian-Somali man identified as Hashim Dagane, who has since been arrested. He has been linked to four murder incidents, all involving women in the area.
Police say he may have been involved in other murder incidents, which are yet to be discovered or exposed. Separately, a 25-year-old man was shot and killed on the night of November 9, in a robbery incident in Eastleigh.
The family of Abdirahim Ibrahim said he was meeting his girlfriend along one of the streets when an unknown assailant approached them and shot him.
Security cameras showed the assailant pulling the trigger at close range, shooting the victim just below the ear, with the bullet exiting on the other side of the head.
The assailant then made away with his mobile phone, leaving the victim’s girlfriend at the scene. The woman works as a waitress in Eastleigh and the two had decided to meet on Saturday night when the incident happened, the family said.
The motive is unknown, but police
say the target was the deceased.
A woman has been detained over
the murder.
