Kenyan man chops off wife’s hand because ‘she wasn’t home to cook’

When 50-year-old Maria Rioba Musa left her home for a funeral in January, she never imagined that she would come back to an enraged husband who would viciously attack her.

Musa, from Migori County in Tarang’anya village, Kenya went to the funeral of a family member and stayed for three days. When she returned home, her husband, Musa Matiko used a panga – a machete – and demanded to know why she took so long to return home, leaving him without a cook.  He then proceeded to chop her left hand off, reports local media Citizen Digital.

Matiko also threw a spear at Musa’s stomach, cut her forehead and attempted to cut her right hand off but was unsuccessful, the report added.

“I stayed at the funeral for three days and left on the fourth. When I got home he asked me who I thought was supposed to be cooking for him on the three days I was away. Previously when we fought he would even beat me up with a rod, but on that day he beat me up with a panga,” the victim recalled.

“I left for a funeral on Monday at one of our in-law’s homestead, we thought the burial was to take place on that day but it delayed until Wednesday. That was the cause of the problem … When I came back home on Thursday I prepared supper but when my husband came back home he started attacking me,” she added.

The couple’s daughter, Catherine Musa, stated that Musa has been the family’s breadwinner raising her along with her eight additional siblings.

Matiko appeared to not contribute to the household.

Musa received treatment and surgery at St. Joseph Omboo Mission Hospital; she also reportedly demanded that charges be brought against her husband.

Migori Police Commander Joseph Nthenge confirmed that even though Musa hadn’t logged a formal complaint, the police department would pursue criminal charges against Matiko.

After the incident, Matiko was said to be at large.

There are no reports released that confirmed if Matiko was found and charged for his crime.

On Tuesday, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni ruffled some feathers about some controversial thoughts he expressed about gender roles.

Museveni and wife Janet… Face2Face Africa

“It is now 45 years with Maama Janet, I have never stepped in the kitchen … That is how it should be,” the 74-year-old president recently told youth entrepreneurs he met in Kampala.

He also added by citing a Runyankore saying which translates, “the head of the home never goes into the kitchen.”

He made the statements as part of an argument to separate the roles of political leaders from civil servants especially in handling government finances.

The statements didn’t go down well with women activists who expressed dismay especially when the president has recently championed the inclusion of women in economic development through small-scale enterprises and not to be held back by house chores.

“Cooking isn’t a woman’s job. It’s a life skill. All people – men and women should cook. When cooking, cleaning and doing other domestic chores are left to women, they are denied an equal chance to raise incomes or to be politically active,” tweets a disappointed Oxfam’s International Executive Director, Winnie Byanyima.