‘Kenyan police killing suspects in low-income areas’

By Andrew Wasike

NAIROBI, Kenya (AA) – Kenyan police have killed at least 21 men and boys in Nairobi’s low-income areas with no justification since August, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on Wednesday.

The human rights watchdog in its latest report has listed cases of extrajudicial killings, unlawful force in the name of maintaining law and order in Nairobi’s informal settlements.

The HRW report said that the police was justifying use of unlawful force, especially in the slums of Dandora and Mathare in Nairobi, saying the youth were criminals.

An Africa researcher at the HRW said police was arresting and killing unarmed people. Otsieno Namwaya, who has helped to draft the report, said neither the police nor oversight authorities were doing much to prevent recurrence of such acts.

The HRW claims to have spoken to 32 people including witnesses, family members of victims, medical and social workers, activists and police personnel, while drafting the report.

The report titled “Nairobi Police Executing Suspects” also documented eyewitness accounts of these excesses that date back to 2017.

While speaking to local media on Wednesday, Police Spokesperson Charles Owino dismissed the report as “street talk”. Owino was speaking on the sidelines of a police accountability conference in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.