VO

Kenya is in the grip of a national election.

Each day there are rallies and protests - which are often marked by violence.

Yet whilst press and international media have been caught up with election fever, grave yards across Kenya have been filling up with hundreds of young men who, human rights groups claim, have been murdered.

I have come to a slum called Kosovo in Nairobi to investigate these killings.

Father in Kosovo Slum

My son went to buy things in town. The police arrested him.  He called me and told me he thought the police were from Pangani.  Once the police got him in Pangini police station, the killed him.

VO

  A woman called Mesa led me to her house and told me what happened to her husband.

Mesa

He was ill and the dragged him out together with a friend.

They told him to lie down, and asked him some questions which he answered.

He had surrendered.

They didn't listen, they just killed him.

After two days I cam back to clean the blood and throw it in the river.

VO

I made my way to the city mortuary.  Where hundreds of the victims of alleged police executions have been taken. This man from the mortuary is threatening me. That if I continue to ask questions about the killings, I will be attacked.

I was not granted entry.

The people of Kosovo told me that those responsible for the murders were the police. And the reason, was a recent search and in these slums for a feared sect called the Mungiki.

Once a small spiritual group in the 1980s, Mungiki is now an ultra violent militia, that thrives on nation wide extortion rackets, doing dirty work for Kenyan politicians and controlling slum areas like here in Kosovo.

Slum man 1

 When we live with these Mungiki people...

We were in constant fear and under their control

They would ask us for a tax on our houses.

If you don't do what they say, you worry about being murdered.

Slum Man 2

 Human Rights is lacking here. Young people are not happy. With the Mungiki, we had to pay 30 shillings to them to give us security.

But now with the government being more involved.

And fighting the Mungiki things have got crazy.

And we are suffering.

Maini Kiai

Kenyan Human Rights Organization

We have found that there are a huge number of dead bodies in the mortuaries and a huge number of dead people reported dumped in the bushes.

And the whole thing seems to come out from the war, a declared war by the government, against so called Mungiki.

VO

I asked the police spokesman why so many young men had been found dead after being taken away by police.

Police spokesperson

Well this is a story. That has been coined by some organizations, some activists, but the allegations are false.

VO

It was becoming clear that the story behind these killings was a complex one.

Because of escalating Mungiki violence and their nationwide extortion rackets,  the Kenyan government felt it was forced to order a police crack down in order to ensure public confidence just before a close call election.

Yet the police search for Mungiki, has seen many innocent people executed.

I made contact with one of the most wanted women in Kenya - a Mungiki leader who was in hiding from the police. 

Mungiki leader

The police are searching for me.

To kill me like they have killed my friends.

Because of what I know.

VO

Then the Mungiki leader told me that because the government were now behind in the election polls, the killing of Mungiki would soon stop.

I asked her why.

Mungiki leader

For the elections! Everybody fears Mungiki because we are bad.

When the people hear we are in an area, they flee!

The nobody votes and the sitting politician wins!

VO

Amazingly , In the violent world of Kenyan politics, its seems that the Mungiki sect, until recently so hunted by the authorities, is now about to be used by the same authorities to cause election chaos.

The real losers in all of this are everyday poor Kenyans.  In the Kosovo slum, the number of orphans is raising daily.