Rights group Independent Medico-Legal Unit (IMLU) has trained ten lawyers drawn from the six counties of Kwale, Lamu, Tana-River, Mombasa, Kilifi, and Taita-Taveta in a bid to have the family members of victims and survivors of extrajudicial killings seek justice.
According to the organization program officer Kelvin Mwangi, the trained lawyers will help to ensure survivors of extrajudicial killings get justice through legal representation.
Speaking at Diani hotel in Kwale county, Mwangi said that their mandate is to help facilitate access to justice to survivors, victims or next of keens of people who survived torture, violence or discrimination.
“We are here to train lawyers to help ensure survivors of extrajudicial killings get justice because most of them come from low social economic status,” he said.
He noted that the organization documented 74 cases of extrajudicial killings in 2017 but later decreased to 44 cases in mid-2018 in Coast region.
“We did not have lawyers from this region despite having a prevalence of extrajudicial killings, torture, and violence being perpetrated. For us to facilitate access to justice we have to get lawyers to be able to help,” he said.
However, he said that they are working with different government agencies to end extrajudicial killing cases in the Coast region.
This comes just a few days after 6 bodies were discovered inside the Tsavo national park raising fears that the victims could have been killed elsewhere and dumped inside the park.
