Tanzania: How attempt to rescue $1000 pigs ended in death of Machame livestock keeper

Hai. An attempt to rescue his sounder of swine from being taken away by suspected bandits ended grievously for a prominent businessman and meat supplier in Hai District on Tuesday, February 19, 2019, when thugs went away with his life.

Theft of five pigs – costing about Sh3.5 million (about $1,100 on the prevailing exchange rate) – would make no headline in any credible media outlet but in the Machame Community of Kilimanjaro Region, they were enough to claim the life of Emmanuel Mbowe (54), a resident of Nsharamfoni Village, North Machame Ward, Hai District, Kilimanjaro Region.

The deceased’s son, Oska Emmanuel Mbowe, told The Citizen on Wednesday that at around 01:00am on Tuesday, suspected thugs broke in his father’s pigsty.

When the family woke up, they found out that the suspected thugs had already butchered about five pigs and packed them into their vehicle.

“They were in a Suzuki Carry -- popularly known as Kirikuu -- in which they had packed the five pigs after killing them. As soon as we came out, they drove away,” he explained.

Emmanuel Mbowe then decided to switch on his vehicle to chase the thugs.

“When we reached a place known as Mferejini Kimashuku, we parked the vehicle because we were very close to them. We wanted to inform the police about the incident. Suddenly, two people – holding machetes – started attacking us and we were not armed,” he said.

He said the attacks grew into a complete war.

“At one point, one of them directed his machete on my neck but I managed to dodge it. My father held the person who wanted to cut off my head when suddenly, the other thug took another machete and cut off my father’s arm. I felt angry but my father told me to run because he knew he was going to die and he  was not ready to see the two of us die on the same time,” he said.

Oska thus had to run for his life as one of the thugs ran after him.

“When I returned to rescue my father after some minutes of pondering on the next course of action, I could see him still fighting for his life as they kept hitting him with the machetes on several parts of his body including on the neck before they finally ran away…Fortunately, a commuter bus came and the driver helped me to take him to Boma Hospital where he died due to excessive bleeding,” he explained.

The Kilimanjaro Regional Police Commander, Hamis Issah confirmed the incident, saying the law enforcers have launched a manhunt to arrest the killers and bring them to book.