MOMBASA, Kenya, Oct 26 – On March 30, 2020, Yassin Moyo and his siblings were gazing outside from their elevated balcony at an apartment complex in Nairobi’s Huruma area as police were carrying out operations to enforce COVID-19 protocols.
Kenya had days earlier announced its first positive Corona Virus case amidst a health scare among its citizens.
Little did Yassin know that it would be his last with those he held dear to his heart.
According to the deceased’s mother Khadijah Abdullah Hussein, the incident happened so quickly as she shouted to his children to,’ lie down’ shortly after gunshots rent the air.
Shockingly moments later, she recalled that her son had fallen awkwardly from the chair he was sitting on, falling on his stomach.
It was at this point that she realised her son had been hit by a police bullet.
Neighbuors quickly drove Yassin to the Mama Lucy Kibaki Hospital. Shortly after, he was pronounced dead as a result of the gunshot wound he had sustained.
More than a year since the tragic incident, Yassin’s mother is still battling trauma. She says, she is in constant fear of her children’s safety while playing outside, particularly when police officers happen to pass by their neigbourhood.
‘I can’t say that whenever a police officer passes by they can do anything good. When they pass by, I am not sure that they will not do something bad to our children. I just can’t see police officers helping us. They are instead harming us,” said Khadijah.
Another mother battling trauma after her sons were brutally killed, allegedly at the hands of police officers is Catherine Wawira.
Wawira is the mother of the slain Kianjokoma brothers Benson Njiru and Emmanuel Mutura.
Their death made national headlines for days after police while allegedly enforcing COVID-19 rules, arrested the two brothers for being outside past curfew hours.
Shockingly, despite police protocols dictating that they are arrested and subsequently arraigned, they were reported missing only for them to days later be found dead.
During a recent interview with TV47, Wawira said that she has now resulted in isolating herself. Though her family is constantly concerned about her wellbeing, she says, the death of her sons was just too much to bear, with fears of depression creeping into her life.
She has also resulted to avoiding most of her social engagements.
“I have like one month now and I don’t feel like going to the market, I feel shy. And I don’t feel like meeting people, even the ‘chamas’, we had one recently, and I told them I won’t go,” said Wawira.
As part of her coping mechanism, she said that she often goes to her son’s bedroom, making their bed. This has now become a daily routine for her.
In a bid to provide the much-needed psychosocial support to victims of police brutality in order to enable them to cope with the loss of their loved ones, the International Justice Mission –IJM resulted in forming a support system group for victims.
The initiative is part of a programme, ‘Kenya Champions for Justice’, that helps victims come together, bond, share their experiences in order to receive counseling services.
Penninah Koome is the acting chairperson of the group.
Penninah joined the programme after her husband Martin Koome succumbed to injuries inflicted on him by former Ruaraka police station OCS Nahashon Mutua.
According to reports, Koome was arrested and booked at the Ruaraka Police Station over a domestic brawl in 2013.
During his detention, however, he was assaulted and tortured by the OCS with postmortem reports indicating that he died as a result of multiple injuries on the head, the neck, and the chest due to blunt force trauma consistent with an assault.
Following the death, Mutua hatched a scheme to cover up the murder. In his report, he implicated the deceased’s cellmate Kelvin Odhiambo and charged him with the murder.
Documents from the prosecution revealed that Mutua had used his power to intimidate the other prisoners in the cell that fateful night to falsely report that it was Odhiambo who assaulted Koome.
In May 2014, IJM filed a complaint with Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) over the false charges against Odhiambo.
The authority conducted an independent investigation and concluded that Odhiambo had been framed. Odhiambo, who by then had been wrongly standing trial for a murder he did not commit, was set free. The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions immediately filed murder charges against Mutua.
In December 2018, Mutua was found guilty of murder and on 14th February 2019, Mutua was sentenced to death.
Koome says navigating through life after the painful incident was anything but easy, however through the Kenya Champions for Justice group, she has been able to get her life back on track following months of counselling.
With at least 29 members, the group which is predominantly domiciled in Nairobi is now seeking to expand its network nationwide, reaching more victims of police brutality while sensitizing them to come forward not only to report cases of police excesses but also to speak out against the vice.
‘We are now planning to recruit more members outside Nairobi, We started with Nairobi because it was the hotspot of police brutality, Like the parents of the brothers in Kianjokoma, we will recruit them after they have finished with the case, because right now they are still traumatized, later we will enjoin them,” Koome said.
One of the challenges. Koome says they encounter is that most people fear being exposed as witnesses as they feel their loved ones could be targeted and even harmed.
Survivors of traumatic events are not only those who have lost loved ones to police killings but also those whose loved ones have allegedly been kidnapped or disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
Haki Africa is among other Human Rights organizations offering counselling services to the victims and survivors of police brutality.
The organization’s director Hussein Khalid says it is imperative that victims and survivors are supported with various programmes being tailor-made to encourage, provide moral support and legal services on how to go about their cases.
According to Missing Voices, in 2020,167 people were killed by the police or disappeared. Shockingly, between January 2021 and September 2021,105 people were also killed by the police or disappeared.
Pamela Masakhwi is the senior manager, survivor services, and a counselling psychologist at the International Justice Mission (IJM).
She says part of her mandate is speaking to victims and encouraging them to speak out against violators since silence, is a ‘gift’ to perpetrators after they commit legality.
This is one of the reasons behind the formation of the Kenya Champions for Justice group.
“The group has helped the victims and they have become the champions. They speak about their stories on the injustices they have gone through at the hands of the police. They are now advocating the right use of the criminal justice system to get justice through their stories,” Masakhwi said.
Some of the long-term effects of trauma include developing an inferiority complex, anxiety disorder, mental health problems that result in depression.
Stakeholders are now calling on the government and other agencies to institute various counselling programmes in order to help victims and survivors of trauma.
“According to the ministry of health, 1 out of 4 people in Kenya have a mental problem. So we need these units so that people can get places where they can go and talk with counselors and get help so that they can process the trauma,” she said.
This is one of the measures being instituted to ensure access to mental health is provided to those in need nationwide.
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