At least 13 people were killed and at least 150 injured on Tuesday when the Kenyan police opened fire on youth-led anti-government demonstrators protesting the country’s cost of living crisis. More demonstrations are expected later this week.
The countrywide protests have been triggered by new tax-hike proposals that will increase the financial burden on families already struggling with sky high inflation.
In the capital, Nairobi, crowds of mostly young people took over the central business district and then stormed parliament, setting part of the building on fire.
The government has declared a “security emergency” and deployed the military to support the police - a move that technically requires parliamentary approval. President William Ruto claimed the protests had been infiltrated by organised criminals whose actions were “treasonous”.
Prior to Tuesday’s demonstrations, Amnesty International reported that 21 social media activists had been abducted and disappeared by state agents as the government moved to curb the growing dissent.
Meanwhile, Safaricom - Kenya’s largest mobile network operator - has denied facilitating the tracking of individuals through the sharing of their data. The company also blamed an “outage” on two undersea cables for a disruption to internet access on Tuesday evening.
Kenya’s youth - the so-called Gen Z - has used social media effectively to organise protest action, and ridicule the authorities.
Despite the government’s crackdown, more demonstrations are expected on Thursday, with one prominent activist saying they would be in memory of “our fallen people”.
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