Kenya: Mystery of Fourteen Missing Bodies
The Nation (Nairobi)
7 June 2007
Posted to the web 7 June 2007
Nation Team
Nairobi
Mystery surrounds the whereabouts of the bodies of the 22 people shot dead during an operation by the paramilitary General Service Unit officers at Nairobi's Mathare Valley slums on Monday night.
According to official police reports, 21 people were gunned down after "hours of shoot-out between the law enforcers and violent gangs in the area" in a sting night-long operation.
It excludes two policemen who had been shot dead by a lone gunman earlier, prompting the operation from around 9pm on Monday to the wee hours on Tuesday.
Lying uncollected
But only seven bodies were at the City Mortuary. The seventh body was booked in by the police at the morgue after lying uncollected for more than seven hours after the operation. Neighbours said the deceased eked his living by selling vegetables in the sprawling slum.
The seven suspects were said to have been shot at Pangani and Mathare's Kosovo areas.
Following the police reports, a Nation team was unable to trace the whereabouts of a single relative of any of deceased despite combing the sprawling valley slum for hours.
But the residents narrated to the team of theft of money and mobile phones, looting of kiosks in the area and the brutality they went through during the operation.
Yesterday, a human head that had been skinned and a man's torso were found in the area. The skinned head was found at an open field behind St Teresa's girls school.
Business in the area came to a standstill after the residents spotted the torso floating in the river within the slum.
The fast-moving waters kept on pushing the body parts downstream as the people tried to recover them.
Police on patrol got wind of it and moved in to prevent the body from being swept away by the waters.
Murky waters
They engaged the services of three street boys who searched the murky waters until about 1 pm when they recovered the body parts which police took away.
A resident, Mr William Otieno, said: "We only read about the shooting to death of 22 in the press...However, as a long-time area resident, I'm surprised that there is no funeral or burial gatherings taking place in any part of this slum."
Similar sentiments were expressed by a cross-section of Mr Otieno's neighbours who only complained that they were beaten and robbed during the operation.
Ms Wandia Wanjiku said: "We do not know where to run or hide...On one hand we are afraid of the Mungiki group while on the other we fear the police who are also extorting money and raping some of us during operations. Indeed, we are caught up in a serious dilemma since we are poor and have no where else to go."
We came across residents whose bodies were swollen as a result of beatings by the police.
A middle aged man said he passed out after he was hit on the forehead with a police baton. His brother, who was accompanying him from hospital, had a swollen lower lip and scars all over his face.
Police, he said, took away his mobile phone and Sh200. The police were further accused of taking bread, sodas and other items from their kiosks.
Another man said he saved himself from the beatings by bribing the officers.
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Afford to sleep
Married women claimed they were also beaten because they could afford to sleep when the police were mourning their dead colleagues while single women were beaten indiscriminately to disclose where their husbands were.
"They beat me and my husband when they found us sleep saying we were comfortable yet they were crying following the shooting of their colleagues," a woman who gave her name as Mueni from Kitui District said.
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