Kenyan protest organizers yesterday called for fresh peaceful marches against controversial tax hikes, as the death toll from nationwide demonstrations climbed to 22, a state-funded rights organization said, vowing an investigation into what it described as “the largest number of deaths [in] a single day protest.”
“We have recorded 22 deaths... we are going to launch an inquiry,” said Roseline Odede, chairwoman of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, adding that 19 people had died in the capital, Nairobi.
The mainly youth-led rallies began mostly peacefully last week, with thousands of people marching across the country against the tax increases, but tensions on Tuesday sharply escalated, as police opened fire on demonstrators who stormed parliament.
Photo: AFP
The unprecedented scenes left parts of parliament ablaze and gutted, and scores of people wounded, shocking Kenyans and prompting Kenyan President William Ruto’s government to deploy the military.
On Tuesday afternoon, parliament passed the contentious bill containing the tax hikes, which must be signed by Ruto to become law.
However, demonstrators vowed to hit the streets again today as they called for the bill to be scrapped.
“Tomorrow we march peacefully again as we wear white, for all our fallen people,” protest organizer Hanifa Adan wrote on X. “You cannot kill all of us.”
Demonstrators shared “Tupatane Thursday” (“we meet Thursday”), alongside the hashtag #Rejectfinancebill2024 on social media.
“The government does not care about us, because they shot us with live bullets,” said Steve, 40, who was at the parliament on Tuesday.
Ruto “victimized innocent people... I expect more violence and chaos,” he said, adding that he would march today.
Kenya Medical Association president Simon Kigondu said that he had never before seen “such level of violence against unarmed people.”
An official at Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi said that medics were treating “160 people ... some of them with soft tissue injuries, some of them with bullet wounds.”
In posts online, protest organisers shared fundraising efforts to support those hurt in the demonstrations.
Ruto late on Tuesday said that his government would take a tough line against “violence and anarchy,” likening some of the demonstrators to “criminals.”
“It is not in order or even conceivable that criminals pretending to be peaceful protesters can reign terror against the people, their elected representatives and the institutions established under our constitution and expect to go scot-free,” he said.
The unrest has alarmed the international community, with more than 10 Western nations including the US saying they were “especially shocked by the scenes witnessed outside the Kenyan Parliament.”
Rights watchdogs have also accused the authorities of abducting protesters.
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