Police officers killed 107 people in 2019.
This is according to a report released by a non-governmental organization dubbed Missing voices.
According to the report, the numbers show that 69 percent of those killed were mostly youth of between 18 to 35 years, followed by 20 percent of those below 18 years.
” With about 80 percent of those killed in 2019 being below the age of 35, Kenya is heading on a slippery slope where we seem to criminalize the youth,” Said Peter Kiama director of the Independent Medical-legal unit.
Kiama argued that most of those killed were from lower-income areas where it seems the law does not apply to them.
” From our verified cases, we see that most of the victims were killed in what police call anti-crime operations. The most affected month was March where 23 young men were killed, most of them in groups of between seven and five,” He added.
According to Amnesty board chair madam Renee Ngamau, despite positive efforts to reform the police with latest efforts by the inspector general of police commanding that all officers should wear uniforms while on duty, disbanding of spy and flying squad that have in the past been accused of killings, police have killed 14 people in January 2020 alone.
” In January, we witnessed the killing of innocent young men like the 17-year-old Stephen Machurusi in Mwiki during a protest and 19-year-old Hemedi Majini in Majengo by police officers. Three people were killed after the burial of Hemedi with a child who was playing losing his sight after being shot at by a stray bullet, ” She added.
Ngamau added that, the young men posed no threats to the officers and were unarmed for them to be killed.
The organizations are now demanding that the government should establish a national commission of inquiry into violations by security agents as well as the implementation of the national coroner’s Act and the prevention of torture Act.
They are also asking for compensation of victims and families of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances as well as a public pronouncement by the inspector general of police and interior Cabinet Secretary condemning police brutality.
