“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.
Agnes Aineah is a Kenyan journalist with a background in digital and newspaper reporting. She holds a Master of Arts in Digital Journalism from the Aga Khan University, Graduate School of Media and Communications and a Bachelor's Degree in Linguistics, Media and Communications from Kenya's Moi University. Agnes currently serves as a journalist for ACI Africa.