In Mugai village, Malava Sub-County in Kakamega County, 23 year-old Fred Makokha and 21-year-old Rebecca Sayi shocked to the world after getting married despite being siblings.

The young lovers who had been dating for six months were closely related through a shared grandfather, a fact that angered elders when it came to light.

As part of a traditional cleansing ritual to avert what was believed to be a generational curse, the pair were tied together and given ten strokes of the cane in front of villagers. A bull was also slaughtered and its internal parts used in the ceremony, which was meant to symbolically cleanse them and deter similar behaviour.

Elders maintained that allowing such a marriage without intervention could lead to misfortune or bad omens for the wider community, hence the unusual ritual response.