To have elections without violence in Kenya is what a group of mothers who have lost their children to the police are asking for. They marched Thursday, June 23 in downtown Nairobi to denounce the impunity surrounding these acts of brutality. And alert to the risks of violence in the run-up to the presidential election on August 9.
With our correspondent in Nairobi, Albane Thirouard
The possibility of violence around the approaching presidential election worries Kenya, where post-election tensions are recurrent. The population remembers in particular the events that followed the 2007 election when more than 1,000 people were killed. These mothers are campaigning today to prevent this scenario from happening again.
” Less electoral violence », « less police brutality “. These slogans punctuate the march in downtown Nairobi. Participants are draped in fabrics, white for peace, red for victims.
Benna Buluma leads the procession. She is nicknamed Mama Victor, after one of her sons who was killed during demonstrations after the 2017 election. We don’t want more violence, more killings, we don’t want to see young people die anymore. We want peaceful elections “, she says.
This message, Mama Victor wants to pass on to politicians: “ They make hateful speeches that incite this violence. But we, the Kenyan people, it leaves us with a terrible feeling. Because after all that, they will shake hands but we will lose our children, neighbors will kill each other. And they are all going to eat together in Parliament, while we are going to cry. »
The collective also demands justice for the victims of police brutality. The mothers denounce impunity and investigations that do not succeed. Efaa Kwendo lost two sons in 2018. She is still awaiting a judgment.
“ There is no justice. In Kenya, people are killed, others disappear… We want the truth. Some have seen their homes destroyed, we have lost loved ones, our children. And we still cry for justice. »
The procession of a hundred people walks to the Supreme Court to file its demands under the songs of the participants.
A Kenyan association, Missing Voice, lists cases of police violence. For 2021, it brought to 219 the number of people killed or missing at the hands of law enforcement.