Kenya’s police watchdog is investigating whether there is any police involvement in the gruesome discovery of mutilated bodies in a Nairobi garbage dump.
The Kenyan Independent Police Oversight Authority (IPOA) is also looking into claims of abductions and unlawful arrests of demonstrators who went missing after widespread anti-government protests.
Police initially said the severely mutilated bodies of six women tied up in plastic bags were on Friday found dumped at a garbage site in an abandoned quarry in Mukuru, in the south of the capital, Nairobi.
Photo: AFP
The IPOA later said in a statement that the remains of at least nine people had been recovered, seven of them female, and called for swift investigations to identify them.
“The bodies, wrapped in bags and secured by nylon ropes, had visible marks of torture and mutilation,” it said, adding that the garbage dump was less than 100m from a police station.
Kenyan police are under sharp scrutiny after dozens of people were killed during demonstrations last month, with rights group accusing officers of using excessive force.
Kenyan Inspector General of Police Japhet Koome, the target of much public anger over the protest deaths, has resigned after less than two years in the post, Kenya’s presidency announced on Friday.
He is the latest head to roll as Kenya President William Ruto scrambles to contain the worst crisis of his rule, triggered by deeply unpopular proposed tax hikes.
Crowds on Friday gathered at the site where the bodies were found, chanting “Ruto must go,” the slogan of the wave of protests led by young Kenyans.
Kenyan police are feared and face frequent allegations of extrajudicial killings but are seldom convicted.
Images on local television showed people using ropes to heave sacks containing the human remains from trash-strewn water at the quarry dump site.
“As the police investigations unfold, IPOA is keenly independently undertaking preliminary inquiries to establish whether there was any police involvement in the deaths, or failure to act to prevent them,” the agency said.
The Kenyan Directorate of Criminal Investigations said preliminary investigations suggested that all the victims had been killed in the same manner, without elaborating.
The Kenyan Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions also highlighted the location of the bodies so close to a police station and said it was “deeply concerned” about the discoveries “which point to a grave violation of human rights.”
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
RSS