Irish priest killed in Kenya ‘for phone and small things’
Fr Jeremiah Roche, who was planning to retire next year and return to his family home in Athea, west Limerick, was brutally murdered in the Kericho region of the country in the early hours of Friday morning.
After a parishioner found the 68-year-old in a pool of blood hours later, local police began a full scale murder investigation.
They believe the elderly priest was viciously stabbed by at least two assailants during a robbery the previous night.
The attackers are understood to have targeted Fr Roche in the belief he had a number of expensive possessions.
However, police have confirmed they escaped with just a mobile phone and a handful of other small items.
The Kiltegan Fathers missionary was a popular figure in the south-west Kenya region, having lived in the same district of the east African country since 1968.
During the four-decade period he dedicated his life to working with the most vulnerable in society, only leaving the country for short holidays in Ireland every three years and fundraising drives in the US and Britain.
In recent months he worked tirelessly to help fund a new church for parishioners.
However, after ethnic violence in the country in the aftermath of last year’s elections, Fr Roche said he was planning to retire and return to his family home.
During the 2008 disturbances, when up to 1,500 people were killed, two Irish priests in Kericho hid members of the Kikuyu ethnic group after they were targeted by armed gangs.
Fr Roche was not in the country at the time of the violence, but Kiltegan Fathers representative Fr Tom Kiggins – who was a close friend of the Limerick priest – said the gesture meant the missionaries were seen as heroes in the community.
“There was a lot of violence there, but the missions were well received. All we know is somebody broke in and did this, for the sake of a mobile phone and a few small things,” he said.
