Posted: Tue Jul 27, 2010 7:09 am Post subject: Deadly home-brewed liquor kills 17 in Kenya
Deadly home-brewed liquor kills 17 in Kenya
Kibera is Kenya's largest slum (file picture) Many Kenyans drink home-distilled liquor because they cannot afford commercial brands
Poisonous moonshine has killed at least 17 people and blinded a dozen more in Kenya's largest slum.
Police said the home-distilled drink may have contained traces of methanol.
Many of those who died were found in their homes in the Nairobi slum of Kibera. Some were taken to hospital but died after arriving there.
Alcohol-related deaths are common in Kenya, with hundreds of people dying every year from poisoned liquor often sold in the brewer's home.
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A woman accused of distilling the moonshine, known locally as changaa, was arrested and is now being questioned, police said.
Samples of the liquid have been sent for tests, they added.
Authorities want to know if the poisonous chemicals in the drink were created by accident in the distilling process or were added deliberately - possibly to make the batch go further.
In a country where most people are too poor to afford legally made alcoholic drinks, changaa is the beverage of choice for thousands of Kenyans, says the BBC's Peter Greste in Nairobi.
The drink, brewed in illicit stills in slums and backyards everywhere, is often spiked with toxic additives to make it stronger, our correspondent says.
Medical officials say the number of victims of the latest batch could yet rise.
Joined: Sep 14, 2004 Posts: 4435 Location: Mathare kwa chief
Posted: Tue Jul 27, 2010 8:07 am Post subject:
kuona mbee..... as locals call it.
the changaa brewers top it up with methanol and sometimes formaldehyde "to increase the kick". Dumb villagers _________________ i'm gonna live forever, or die trying.... and that's a fact.
Joined: Aug 04, 2008 Posts: 356 Location: Indian Ocean
Posted: Tue Jul 27, 2010 8:31 am Post subject:
call me a jerk ,or as many of my girlfriends say am insensitive, but i have gotta say this, most people of the chang,aa die out of ignorance, stupidity or rather i call it insanity. . these people leave behind families who are left suffering especially kids who i really feel for. but how am i supposed to feel anything when this person dies,
Quote:
this lady was on TV yesterday, she and her husband, went to the brewer, the brew they took was a mixture of not one or two but several different brews, they went home with her husband, as they were both drunk she never noticed but woke up to find her husband dead, she heard in the news that it was changaa that killed him yet she went on to consume the same brew even after her husbands death, she was bragging to the media how by 6:00 AM she has to have had a brew. and she is not intending to quit.
a few years back before changaa was banned people went blind while consuming the drink, it is reported that they told the bar owner,' even if you switch off the light we will still drink'. its not good to note that most of the people dying are below the age of 30. but what can you really do about such high levels of ignorance. KEG was introduced by KBL to compete and ride out changaa, its brewed professionally and a cup goes for ksh15, yet they still drink changaa.
how do you find a drink labeled, "steam Engine" and still drink it. the loss in labor has been substantial, loss in education( parents who would rather drink other than pay fees for their kids) but when it comes to loss of life ,i sincerely dont know how i can help other that be critical with the victims. but maybe its time the president assents to the Alcohol regulatory bill. _________________ Undead :when tragedy strikes a wise man consoles himself that what happened to him was inevitable and moves on,
but a fool consoles himself that what happened to him will also happen to others and waits for it to happen.
kenN
Joined: Aug 01, 2008 Posts: 1241 Location: Down the lane
Posted: Tue Jul 27, 2010 9:12 am Post subject:
Why do these people drink - healthwise?
addiction, alcoholism, depression, dysfunctional families, personality disorders what?
And I do not think it is about the price or legalising.
As for the brewers, a murder charge for every lost life. it's murder - how come the brewers do not take these poisons THEMSELVES? _________________ Great minds discuss ideas; ordinary minds, events; simple minds, people; simpletons, sheep.
Joined: Sep 14, 2004 Posts: 4435 Location: Mathare kwa chief
Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2010 9:31 am Post subject:
BaaBaBlackSheep wrote:
Why do these people drink - healthwise?
addiction, alcoholism, depression, dysfunctional families, personality disorders what?
i believe it's a series of factors
joblessness ==> idleness ==> alcoholism ==> addiction
low income ==> depression ==> alcoholism ==> addiction
Quote:
As for the brewers, a murder charge for every lost life. it's murder - how come the brewers do not take these poisons THEMSELVES?
I second that. the brewers should be charged with murder or at least manslaughter _________________ i'm gonna live forever, or die trying.... and that's a fact.
i think some habits are peculiar to kenyans, pple died at Shauri Moyo over the same thing, and not even years later, pple are still drinking the killer brews. Same habit when an oil trailer crashed and pple ran to get some oil and got burnt to death, a few days/wks later, another oil tanker overturners and kenyans are going for the kill forgetting the danger.
Like someone once said, 'Ujinga is talent'. _________________ If time slips away and you haven't heard a word from me, always remember that friendship is more than words, its a feeling of love, warmth and togetherness is our hearts.
Joined: Sep 14, 2004 Posts: 4435 Location: Mathare kwa chief
Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2010 3:36 am Post subject:
i think the govt needs to me more strict... charge the survivors with attempted suicide. this might curb the vice. _________________ i'm gonna live forever, or die trying.... and that's a fact.
Joined: Aug 04, 2008 Posts: 356 Location: Indian Ocean
Posted: Wed Aug 11, 2010 1:01 am Post subject:
four more died in laikipia yesterday, one survivor is blind. you ask those still drinking they say they are lucky , those who died are unlucky because they all drink the same stuff. (they say; ati ni bus yao ilifika wakasafiri)
lucky is you when fate finds you once and you get away with it, but doomed is you when you think fate wont find you twice. and thats what most illicit brew drinkers in kenya are, DOOMED. doomed to live enslaved by alcohol. they have doomed their families to lives of sorrow, misery and poverty, and they themselves are doomed to die like dogs
so anyone else who dies out of these illicit brews dies out of will. some of these guys (sorry to say this) but they are better dead, they have fathered children yet instead of the children becoming liabilities, they themselves have become liabilities to their children and parents. some go to an extent of selling household and family assets to finance their drinking habits.
one of my professors told me that poverty is a disease with a life cycle that can run through a whole generation, and the major causative organism of poverty is alcoholism. and he was right alcoholics subject their families into a life of poverty, not necessarily in material, but love, care, and responsibility. _________________ Undead :when tragedy strikes a wise man consoles himself that what happened to him was inevitable and moves on,
but a fool consoles himself that what happened to him will also happen to others and waits for it to happen.
kenN
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