Members of the outlawed Mungiki sect yesterday took over a section of the city centre and attacked civilians seriously injuring six people including a police officer.
The Mungiki adherents descended on Accra Road at 5.45 pm in what is suspected to be an attack on the matatu clerks of Dandora route 42.
Nairobi Provincial Police Officer, Stephen Kimenchu, said the sect members wanted to interfere with transport in the area. The injured were rushed to Kenyatta National Hospital and were admitted.
An eye-witness, David Mutua, said an unknown number of sect members disembarked from a convoy of four mini-buses outside the Kenya National Archives.
He said the adherents who donned heavy jackets and caps then mixed with crowds of hundreds of commuters who were going home after the day’s work.
Mutua said attackers then simultaneously drew new machetes wrapped in papers.
He said one of them shouted, "Let’s kill them!" and the group descended on the commuters waiting in line to board the matatus.
The first victim was woman who was slashed on the back.
A second was also attacked who police said sustained cuts and a third person was hit by blunt object and was rushed to hospital in a coma.
Hundreds of people fled from the scene when they saw the bloodletting while business came to a standstill.
Mutua said a courageous man picked up a stone and knocked down one of the sect members prompting the rest of the gang to drop their weapons and flee.
Flying Squad police officers were the first to arrive at the scene and repulsed the sect members who fled towards Grogan Road.
Central OCPD, Mr Japheth Koome, said a police inspector was injured while picking up the machetes and swords. Witnesses, however, claimed that his fingers had been cut during the scuffle.
Koome said the police had spread out from the scene of the crime in a bid to arrest the sect members from their hiding places.
He said the police will pursue the sect members relentlessly until they are brought to justice.
By 8 pm relative calm had returned as police in combat and civilian clothes were patrolling Nairobi streets.