How “prayer” over Strange Illness at Kenyan Catholic School Sent Students into a Frenzy

A Catholic Priest who was present at the assembly was denied the opportunity to lead the prayers, Fr. Kibaki said, and added, “The priest was leading the final prayer when a protestant parent cut him short and started praying in a protestant way, vehemently. He seemed to be casting out demons that he said were tormenting the students.”

“The parents prayed one after the other and it became like a competition. The students joined in on top of their voices, jumping, screaming and throwing themselves on the ground. Some even collapsed. They were very hysterical,” Fr. Kibaki said in the Friday, October 6 interview with ACI Africa.

He said that as the “chaotic prayers”, and collapsing went on, a section of the students pelted stones at nearby cars belonging to the education and health officials.

Fr. Kibaki condemned bloggers who had alleged that the Catholic school had brought in a cult preacher who had fueled the mass hysteria, saying, “No preacher was brought to the school. The bloggers are telling lies.”

Ms Jackline Judith Itubo, the Principal of St. Theresa’s Eregi Girls High School corroborated Fr. Kibaki’s account, noting that about 100 parents stormed the school which the Catholic priest said is “about three quarters protestant.”

According to Ms Itubo, the disgruntled parents complained of their children being asked to attend Holy Mass.

The parents, she said, had come to the school “demanding to be given their children.”

She said that as the meeting between the school administration and the county education officials was going on, the parents “became impatient and turned to be rowdy.”

“After the meeting, all those who were in the meeting decided to talk to the parents, convincing them all was well. But the more they talked to them the more they became rowdy. They demanded that the school should introduce CU (Christian Union) and not subject their children to attend Mass, which is the Catholic faith. They even drifted from what brought them to school,” Ms Itubo said.

The school principal recalls that at the end of the meeting with the parents, the government education officials accompanied by health officials who had reported to the school earlier went to address the students in assembly.

“The parents also forced their way to parade,” she says in a report shared with ACI Africa, and adds, “Little did we know that the parents who had come together with their children had bad intentions. Immediately after the address by the Regional Director of Education and in the middle of prayer a form 3 student fell down screaming and followed by a form 4 one who was also screaming and suddenly the whole school went wild screaming and some parents joined them in screaming.”

“In the process the students started throwing stones randomly hitting and destroying the window panes of a few classes, damaging the windscreens of the Regional Director's GK Vehicle,” she says, adding that vehicles belonging to the health and education officials were vandalized in the mayhem that ensued.

Ms Itubo says that the school was subjected to a state of confusion with students hurling stones to the officials, and injuring many of them.

The girls also chanted “haki yetu kwenda nyumbani” which is Swahili for “it’s our right to go home”.

Form three students who were set to begin their examinations on that day chanted the loudest, the school principal said.

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Education officials are said to have reconvened a meeting in which it was concluded that the parents be allowed to go with their children upon signing release letters.

In the Friday interview with ACI Africa, Fr. Kibaki, who sits on the board of the school, told ACI Africa that a meeting had been scheduled later in the day to plan for next week’s return of the students.

Fr. Kibaki said he was mulling over the idea to organize a spiritual retreat for the students, noting that what they suffered was psychological.

“We have a meeting later today where I plan to propose professional counseling and a psychospiritual support program for the students. We will hopefully organize a recollection to pray for the students and to give them confessions. What they suffer is psychological because they believe that they have been attacked by demons,” he said.

The Kenyan Priest said that the incident at St. Theresa’s Eregi Girls High School wasn't the first that he had seen in Western Kenya Catholic schools. “The same illness happened at Sacred Heart Mukumu Girls High School, and we addressed it by prayers. It happened again at St. Cecilia Girls High School, Misikhu in the Diocese of Bungoma, and some 10 years ago, at Eregi Primary School.”

“We have been looking into all these incidents and discovered that they were all addressed by prayers and professional counseling,” Fr. Kibaki said.

Meanwhile, the Catholic Priest has condemned parent’s rowdiness at St. Theresa’s Eregi Girls High School, noting that they were setting bad examples for their children.

“It is unfortunate that parents don’t trust professionals to do their job. They don’t trust teachers who stay with their children for the longest time. Neither do they trust health officials. If they had let the professionals do their work, the situation at Eregi Girls High School wouldn’t have escalated as it did,” he said.