NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct 24- A damning statement by the Independent Policing Oversight Authority has exposed the extent of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances in Kenya- amidst calls for a commission of inquiry on the vices.
IPOA released the statement hours before a renowned investigative journalist was shot dead by police, in unclear circumstances, causing a widespread outcry beyond Kenya’s borders.
The taxpayers-sponsored body listed more than 30 names of victims of suspected incidents of extrajudicial killings and how they were murdered and more than a hundred others of enforced disappearances.
The extrajudicial statistics involved many incidents including one in which 25 bodies were discovered dumped at a river in Siaya County.
According to IPOA, all the victims were killed similarly involving torture, while most were from Counties far away from Siaya.
The bodies found in River Yala were discovered in January this year on various dates.
Autopsy reports revealed that 12 victims had head injuries, 2 abdominal, and chest injuries, one was drowned, another had head and chest injuries and 3 were strangled to death.
IPOA also detailed peritonitis as a cause of death for one of the victims.
“Preliminary investigations point out that the nature of injuries sustained or cause of death point to similar perpetrators,” IPOA chairperson Anne Makori said during a press briefing on Monday.
On September 2021, the authority started a probe into incidents in which 13 bodies were recovered in Tana River on various dates.
Of the 13, Makori said eleven bodies had stones tied on them.
Like in the River Yala case, investigations show they could have suffered their fate under the hands of similar perpetrators.
The Authority said it supports calls for a Commission of Inquiry to be established, to dig more on the extent of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances in Kenya.
Similar calls have been made by the Law Society of Kenya and human rights defenders led by Peter Kiama of the Independent Medico Legal Unit (IMLU).
IPOA is also probing the deaths of 11 people among them 8 police officers during an operation in Turkana.
Despite the extent of their mandate, IPOA decried the lack of cooperation from a section of members of the National Police Service.
IPOA also listed 112 names of people suspected to be victims of enforced disappearances.
The names are from people across the country.
Bodies of some of the victims have been retrieved from rivers and forests, the authority said.
Statistics show most of the victims are from the Coastal towns and Nairobi.
President William Ruto has since disbanded a DCI crack unit dubbed the Special Service Unit, over the killings.
The President said the unit was used to cases kill Kenyans.
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