HRW slams collective punishment of Somalis in Kenya

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

The alleged abuses by Kenyan Police were an apparent response to a grenade attack on a city commuter minibus. Police suspected the attacks were carried out by gunmen with links to the Somali local fighters Al-Shabab.

Seven people were killed and another 30 wounded in the predominantly Somali suburb of Eastleigh in the capital Nairobi, also known as the mini-Mogadishu.

The alleged abuses took place between November 2012 and January 2013, a little more than a year after Kenyan troops entered Somalia to fight with al-Shabab.

Witnesses told Human Rights Watch the Police carried out 70 days of QUOTE "terror" in the neighborhood, leading to the loss of many innocent lives.

Twenty-seven year old Yaya Ahmed was just one of the many Somali refugees who lost their lives in those 70 dark days...

Seven months after his execution, his sister, Nima Ahmed, is in grief and in search of an elusive justice.

Nima Ahmed has lived in Kenya as a refugee for the past 6 years. She recalls that fateful day.

Fatuma Abdi Haji, Yaya Ahmed's aunt lives just 500 meters away…She recalls Yaya was having his medicine andthe breakfast that she had prepared for him.

According to Nima, her brother Ahmed was shot dead by detectives from the Criminal Investigations Department (CID). The postmortem reports indicate two bullet wounds were found in Ahmed's chest.

This is where Ahmed took his last breath.. When he had just innocently peeped to see what was happening, he was among the few who unfortunately fell victim to the vicious police operations being conducted that day.

The Rights Watch report also documented how Kenyan Police kept calling their victims "terrorists" and extorted money from them.

What has shocked HRW is the conspiracy of silence over the whole issue. Not a single entity has ever raised a voice; no one attempted to stop the attacks.

The government of Kenya has repeatedly promised to investigate accusations leveled against its security forces. But according to Human Rights Watch, they have remained silent over the issue and so far no serious action has been taken.

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