Category Archives: Kenya

Haiti’s most powerful gang boss calls for uprising to overthrow prime minister

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Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Chérizier issued call to arms as US looks to UN to approve Kenya-led mission to stem country’s growing violence

The most severe humanitarian crisis in the Americas has taken yet another dramatic turn after Haiti’s most powerful gang boss took to the streets to call for an armed uprising to overthrow the country’s unpopular prime minister.

Jimmy Chérizier, a police officer turned gang lord nicknamed “Barbecue”, issued his call to arms on Tuesday, as reports suggested the US was preparing to ask the UN security council to approve a Kenya-led intervention designed to address the Caribbean country’s escalating security crisis.

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Climate adaptation finance to Africa must increase tenfold, research shows

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Countries forced to choose between climate resilience, fighting poverty and paying debts, says Ban Ki-moon

The flow of climate adaptation finance to Africa must increase up to tenfold by 2035 to meet the deepening effects of the climate crisis, according to research.

As the Africa Climate Summit continued in Nairobi, campaigners spoke of the desperate need to get funding to people who are already being affected by climate change. Africa, the region most impacted by the climate emergency, receives only 3% of global climate finance.

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African leaders at odds over climate plans as crucial Nairobi summit opens

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Oil-producing African nations argue they should be able to use fossil fuel resources for economic growth

African leaders and campaigners are at odds over the way forward for the continent as a critical climate summit begins in Nairobi.

Some countries, such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Egypt and South Africa, have been expanding their renewable energy access and leading transition efforts on the continent, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.

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Sent home: how Kenyan’s dream of life as a UK care worker turned sour

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Anthony Mbare found his tied visa put him at mercy of his bosses. He is one of thousands who have come to plug shortages in adult social care

It is a bitter November night and Anthony Mbare is shivering in a car in rural Wiltshire, south-west England, waiting to see his next client.

It’s 3C and he has been here for almost two hours but he cannot turn on the heater because the car battery might die. A petrol-station coffee to warm him up is £3 he cannot afford. He blows on his hands, wriggles his toes and huddles under a blanket.

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CEO regrets her firm took on Facebook moderation work after staff ‘traumatised’

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Outsourcer Sama facing legal cases brought by Kenya-based employees alleging exposure to graphic content

The chief executive of a company contracted to moderate Facebook posts in east Africa has said she regretted taking on the work, after its staff said they were left traumatised by graphic content on the social media platform.

The US outsourcing firm Sama is facing a number of legal cases brought by Kenya-based employees, who alleged being exposed to graphic and traumatic content such as videos of beheadings, suicide and other material at a moderation hub.

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Kenya launches inquiry into claims of abuse by British soldiers at training unit

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Nairobi MPs say findings could have implications for the defence deal that allows UK troops to train in the country

The Kenyan government has launched an inquiry into allegations of abuse by the British army, which MPs say could have implications for the future role of UK troops in the country.

The investigation will examine the activities of the British Army Training Unit Kenya (Batuk), whose soldiers have been accused of murder, sexual abuse, and damaging land close to its base in Nanyuki, about 125 miles (200km) north of the capital, Nairobi.

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Kenya’s offer to send police to Haiti sparks human rights concerns

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Groups say move could worsen country’s security crisis given police force’s poor human rights record

An offer from Kenya to dispatch police officers to Haiti has been welcomed by officials in the embattled Caribbean nation – but prompted concern among human rights groups who say the move could worsen the country’s security crisis.

Haiti’s prime minister, Ariel Henry, requested international support from the UN last year when gangs began taking control of much of the country, engulfing the nation in chaos as they fought pitched street battles.

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Kenya halts Worldcoin data collection over privacy and security concerns

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Issues raised include use of eye scans to prove ‘humanness’ and financial inducements to sign up

The Kenyan government has barred the eyeball-scanning Worldcoin cryptocurrency project from recruiting new customers as it investigates data privacy and security concerns.

Kenya’s interior ministry said the venture must stop collecting user data after raising a number of issues including: concerns over the secure storage of data that includes scans of a user’s iris; that offering crypto in exchange for data “borders on inducement”; inadequate information on cybersecurity safeguards; and placing large amounts of private data in the hands of a private business.

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Meta, Google and YouTube ‘profiting’ off posts for bogus women’s health cures in Kenya

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Tech firms permit ads for potentially harmful products including vaginal ‘cleanse’ balls and useless herbs for infertility, according to an investigation

Meta, YouTube and Google are profiting from posts promoting harmful and useless health products to women in Kenya, according to an investigation.

Researchers from the media collective Fumbua have accused big tech firms of amplifying content that promises unproven cures for infertility and herbs that can stave off cancers on their networks.

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‘Our biggest challenge is simply to exist’: atheist society fights for legal recognition in God-fearing Kenya

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Non-believers say their civil liberties are at stake in a court battle against a bishop who wants to strip them of legal recognition

Kenya’s first atheist group is battling to keep legal recognition in a case filed by a Christian bishop seeking to suspend its registration.

The Atheists in Kenya Society (AKS) said basic civil liberties hung in the balance as it prepares to file a submission on Monday in response to a petition presented against the group and the Kenyan registrar of societies by Stephen Ndichu.

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Death toll rises as Kenya’s cost-of-living protests continue

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Opposition leader Raila Odinga rallies his supporters to the streets where there have been clashes with armed police in Nairobi and western city of Kisumu

Teargas and live ammunition were used against demonstrators as pockets of violence broke out in Kenya during a second day of protests against tax increases and rising living costs.

Despite relative calm in Nairobi on Thursday morning, there were clashes in the informal settlements of Kibera and Mathare in the capital, and in the western city of Kisumu. Protesters threw stones at police, who had mounted a heavy presence in Nairobi after the deaths of at least six demonstrators and more than 300 arrests around the country on Wednesday.

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At least two killed after Kenyan police fire on protesters

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Protests against tax rises and cost of living turn violent with hospitals reporting many wounded by gunshot

At least two people have been killed after anti-government protests in Kenya, as police opened fire on demonstrators protesting against the cost of living and tax increases.

Demonstrators hurled rocks at police and burned tyres in the streets on Wednesday, while the security forces fired teargas in the third round of anti-government demonstrations the opposition called this month.

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Ex-diplomat jailed for 2012 murder of Venezuelan ambassador in Kenya

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Dwight Sagaray was given 20-year sentence after being stripped of diplomatic immunity following the crime

A Kenyan court has sentenced a former Venezuelan diplomat to 20 years in jail over the 2012 murder of the Latin American nation’s acting ambassador at her home in an upmarket Nairobi neighbourhood.

Dwight Sagaray, who was the first secretary at the embassy, was convicted in January, along with three Kenyan nationals, over the murder of the ambassador Olga Fonseca.

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Three arrested in Kenya as backlash grows over period strip-search

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Police take action as activists, politicians and the company involved all condemn tactics used by managers investigating who put sanitary towel in wrong bin

Three senior managers from a Kenyan dairy company have been arrested over allegations of indecent assault after they forced a group of female employees to undress in order to find out which of them was on their period.

The incident, which happened last week at Brown’s Food Company’s dairy factory in Limuru, in central Kenya, followed failed attempts by the managers – all three of whom are women – to find out who had put a sanitary towel in the wrong bin.

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Intel executive ‘actively responsible’ for driving anti-LGBTQ+ agenda in Africa, say campaigners

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Greg Slater is co-founder with his wife Sharon of Family Watch International, a US group accused of financing propaganda about sexual and gender diversity

A group of human rights organisations in Africa renewed their calls this week for the American multinational Intel Corporation to dismiss a senior employee over his alleged involvement in fanning the growing anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment in several countries, including Kenya and Uganda.

In a change.org petition, supported by more than a dozen organisations, the rights groups claim that Greg Slater, Intel’s vice-president of global regulatory affairs, has been “actively responsible for exporting, financing, and spreading hate, homophobia” on the continent for decades, through the American conservative organisation, Family Watch International.

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Death toll in Kenya road crash rises to 52

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Truck lost control at notorious junction in Londiani, hitting people and vehicles in latest road catastrophe

The death toll of a road crash in western Kenya rose to 52 on Saturday, officials said, as rescuers worked to clear the wreckage from one of the deadliest traffic accidents in the country in recent years.

A truck carrying a shipping container veered out of control and ploughed into multiple other vehicles and people thronging a busy roadside junction on Friday evening, plunging the nation into shock and mourning.

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Guards at Del Monte pineapple farm in Kenya accused of killings

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An investigation by the Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative journalism has uncovered claims from villagers in Kenya of violence and even killings linked to guards on a Del Monte pineapple farm. Emily Dugan reports


Emily Dugan, a senior reporter with the Guardian who has been working on a story with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism for the past few months, tells Michael Safi how they uncovered claims from villagers living near Thika, in Kenya, of guards assaulting and killing people suspected of trespassing on one of the country’s biggest pineapple farms, owned by Del Monte.

The guards are typically armed with wooden clubs called rungus. Their use in security is legal and common in Kenya because of the risk of violent theft, including from young men who regularly go in organised groups to steal pineapples, but the claims suggest the guards’ use of violence has been excessive.

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Urgent action needed to protect ‘dying’ Kenyan domestic workers in Gulf, say rights groups

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Deaths and alleged abuse of Kenyan women in Saudi Arabia fuels demands for Nairobi to act on human rights

Rights groups have expressed concern that not enough has been done to address the alleged mistreatment of domestic workers in Gulf states, such as Saudi Arabia, after the Kenyan government moved to secure work opportunities abroad for its citizens.

“This is a matter of grave public interest,” said John Mwariri, a lawyer at Kituo cha Sheria, a legal aid organisation. “Many of our Kenyan citizens have been abused and are dying there. There is an urgent need for protections.”

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UK aid should not fund private hospitals in developing countries, says Oxfam

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Development charity says patients denied treatment or held hostage until fees paid in private facilities in India and Kenya

Private hospitals in India and Kenya accused of refusing people on low incomes vital healthcare, or holding them hostage until bills have been paid, benefit from UK government investment funds, according to a report by Oxfam.

Investments worth hundreds of millions of pounds by government-backed agencies are used to facilitate the “impoverishment and even the imprisonment of the very people [the private hospitals] are supposed to be helping”, said the development charity.

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Kenya human rights commission to investigate alleged killings on pineapple farm

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Commission ‘concerned and disturbed’ by claims of lethal violence by security guards on Del Monte farm

Kenya’s national human rights body has launched an investigation into allegations of killings and assaults by security guards at a Del Monte pineapple farm in Thika that supplies most British supermarkets.

A joint investigation by the Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) published earlier this week uncovered claims from villagers of violence by guards at the plantation, including three alleged killings in the last four years.

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