Category Archives: Kenya

Kenyan court sentences police officer to death for triple murder

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Three other accused will serve sentences of up to 30 years over deaths of Willie Kimani, Josephat Mwenda and Joseph Muiruri, in case that sparked national protests

A police officer, Fredrick Leliman, who was among those convicted of killing Nairobi lawyer Willie Kimani, his client Josephat Mwenda and taxi driver Joseph Muiruri, has been sentenced to death by a Nairobi court.

In the judgment delivered on Friday, three other accused, Stephen Cheburet, Sylvia Wanjiku and Peter Ngugi, will serve 30, 24, and 20 years in prison, respectively.

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Children go hungry at Kenya refugee camp as malnutrition numbers soar

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MSF charity reports 33% rise in malnourished patients at giant Dadaab complex after influx from drought-stricken Somalia

Malnutrition among children in one of the world’s largest refugee camps has surged over the past year as concerns grow at worsening conditions at the site in Kenya.

Médecins Sans Frontières said its health facility in Dagahaley, a camp in the Dadaab refugee complex, has treated 33% more patients – mainly children – for malnutrition over the past year, while the rate of malnourishment in the camps grew by 45% in the last six months of 2022.

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Kenya declares war on millions of birds after they raid crops

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Toxic pesticides used to eradicate grain-eating quelea may harm the country’s endangered raptors, say conservationists

A drive by the Kenyan government to kill up to 6 million red-billed quelea birds that have invaded farms will have unintended consequences for raptors and other wild species, experts have warned.

The continuing drought in the Horn of Africa has reduced the amount of native grass, whose seeds are queleas’ main food source, causing the birds to increasingly invade grain fields, putting 2,000 acres (800 hectares) of rice under threat. About 300 acres of rice fields have been destroyed by the birds.

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Kenyan police arrest suspect over killing of LGBTQ+ activist

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Body of fashion designer and model Edwin Chiloba, 25, found in metal trunk left by roadside

Police investigating the death of an LGBTQ+ rights campaigner whose body was discovered stuffed in a metal trunk have arrested a suspect, they said.

Edwin Chiloba, a 25-year-old fashion designer and model, was found dead by the roadside earlier this week about 40km (25 miles) outside the Rift Valley town of Eldoret, media reports said.

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Killing of LGBTQ+ activist prompts outcry over anti-gay attacks in Kenya

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Body of fashion designer and model Edwin Chiloba, 25, found stuffed in metal box by side of road, say reports

Kenyan police are investigating the death of an LGBTQ+ rights activist whose body was discovered stuffed in a metal box in a killing that has provoked national outrage.

Edwin Chiloba, a 25-year-old fashion designer and model, was found dead by the side of a road on Wednesday 25 miles (40km) outside the Rift Valley town of Eldoret in western Kenya, according to reports.

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Renewed fighting in DRC raises fears of chaotic proxy conflict

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Conflict has displaced at least 400,000 people since March in a growing humanitarian crisis

In the camps on the flanks of the Nyiragongo volcano in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, they listen carefully. Not for warning of an eruption but to the dull thuds of distant mortar and artillery fire. Some days there are none, and hopes are raised. On other days, the sounds of war make clear to every one of the thousands of villagers huddled in their makeshift shelters that they will not be going anywhere very soon.

“We want to return home to cultivate our fields and keep our cows, sheep and goats because we are here and we are hungry. We are suffering a lot,” said Nsambimana Ashiwe, 64, at a displacement camp in Kanyaruchinya, a few miles south of the frontlines.

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Pakistani journalist’s killing in Kenya ‘a pre-meditated murder’

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Fact-finding team sent by Pakistani government finds contradictions in reports on Arshad Sharif’s death

A team set up by the Pakistani government to investigate the killing of a well-known Pakistani journalist in Nairobi said it found several contradictions in the version given by Kenyan authorities, and believes it was a case of pre-meditated murder.

The TV journalist Arshad Sharif, who had fled Pakistan citing threats to his life, was shot dead in Nairobi in October. Kenyan officials said it was a case of mistaken identity and that police hunting car thieves opened fire on his vehicle as it drove through a roadblock without stopping.

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Former development secretaries urge Sunak to increase east Africa aid amid drought

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‘Famine in all but name’ ravaging Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, yet British aid is one-fifth of 2017 amount

The UK urgently needs to do more to help more than 28 million people in drought-stricken Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, two former secretaries of state for international development and the heads of 14 of the UK’s leading aid agencies have warned in a joint letter to the prime minister, Rishi Sunak.

They say one person is dying every 36 seconds, yet British aid to the region is only one-fifth of what Britain provided when the region was struck by famine in 2017. More than 7 million children are acutely malnourished across the three countries.

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Forgotten photos show how Kenyan archaeologists unearthed secrets of their own country

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Exhibitions in UK and Africa rewrite history by celebrating discoveries of overlooked black excavators in colonial era

The photographs are rare, the subject choice unusual, but what the photographer captured was a common sight in the early 20th century: a team of colonised people, hard at work under a hot sun, excavating an ancient monument.

Today, without these photos, taken in Kenya in the 1940s and 50s, there would be scarcely any evidence that African Kenyans were present at archaeological digs. Their contributions and priceless finds were credited to their European bosses – and their important role in unearthing the history of their own continent has been all but forgotten.

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Kenyan government halts baobab exports to Georgia after outcry

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President orders Ministry of Environment and Forestry to launch investigation over contractor’s licence for removing trees

The Kenyan government has halted the transportation and export of Kilifi baobabs to Georgia and ordered an investigation into how a foreign contractor received permission to transport the ancient trees out of the country.

Kenya’s president, William Ruto, ordered the Ministry of Environment and Forestry to investigate whether Georgy Gvasaliya had the proper licence to take the trees out of Kenya under the Nagoya protocol, an international agreement that governs the conditions for the export of genetic resources, which has been incorporated into Kenyan law.

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Evidence suggests reporter killed in Kenya was targeted, says Pakistan

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Kenyan police decline to respond to interior minister’s comments regarding death of Arshad Sharif

Pakistan’s interior minister has said evidence suggests a prominent Pakistani journalist was the victim of a targeted killing in Kenya, rather than an accidental shooting, though he said he still needed more information on the incident.

The Kenyan police spokesperson Bruno Shioso declined to respond to Rana Sanaullah’s comments on Tuesday regarding the death of the TV journalist Arshad Sharif, who was shot dead on the evening of 23 October on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

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Kenyan police charged with crimes against humanity over 2017 crackdown

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Twelve officers face charges including rape, murder and torture over response to post-election protests

In a landmark decision, 12 Kenyan police officers will face charges of crimes against humanity over a deadly crackdown on post-election protests in 2017, prosecutors have announced.

The charges include rape, murder and torture and the case of a six-month-old girl whose death became a symbol of police brutality during the election aftermath.

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Pakistani journalist killed by police in Kenya ‘was case of mistaken identity’

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Police say Arshad Sharif was shot after his car failed to stop at a roadblock near Nairobi

Kenya’s national police service has said it regretted the killing of a Pakistani journalist who had been living in hiding in the country and was shot dead in Nairobi in an incident it described as a case of mistaken identity.

Officers opened fire on Arshad Sharif, 50, and a friend on Sunday after they allegedly drove through a security roadblock outside the Kenyan capital.

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‘Overlapping shocks’ are undoing efforts to end hunger in Africa, UN warns

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Urgent aid response needed as climate crisis, Covid, local conflicts and soaring fuel prices push millions more into hunger

• ‘We need urgent help’: Somalis displaced by drought and famine fight to survive

Decades of work to reduce hunger in Africa are being reversed as the continent struggles to cope with conflict, climate crisis and the global economic downturn, the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has warned.

About 278 million people in Africa – approximately one-fifth of the total population – went hungry in 2021, an increase of 50 million people since 2019, according to UN figures. Based on current trends, this is projected to rise to 310 million by 2030.

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Ugandan president fires son from military role after ‘capture Nairobi’ tweet

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Latest in series of provocative tweets leads to removal of Lt Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba as infantry commander

The Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, has fired his son as commander of the country’s infantry forces after the son tweeted an unprovoked threat to capture the capital of neighbouring Kenya, drawing widespread concern in east Africa.

Lt Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, labelled “the tweeting general” of Uganda, in recent months had sparked anger among some Ugandans who see his frequent tweets as provocative and sometimes dangerous.

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Horn of Africa drought puts 3.6m children at risk of dropping out of school

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Experts warn that girls’ education will be worst hit, as many families are forced to move away from schools

More than 3.5 million children are at risk of dropping out of school due to the drought in the Horn of Africa, the United Nations has said, amid warnings the crisis could lead to “a lost generation” that misses out on education.

According to new figures shared with the Guardian, Unicef now estimates that 3.6 million children in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia are in danger of leaving school as a result of the cumulative pressure on households caused by the unrelenting drought.

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‘End of an era’: how the Queen’s funeral was seen around the world

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From Melbourne to Paris, New York to Delhi, the solemn events in London resonated around the globe

As the doors to Westminster Abbey opened to allow guests to take their seats, across the other side of the world, Australians sat down in front of their TVs to watch the historic event.

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‘A brutal legacy’: Queen’s death met with anger as well as grief in Kenya

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Politicians pay warm tributes but memories of colonial atrocities prompt fierce criticism too

In 1952, the then Princess Elizabeth was on a royal tour with Prince Philip at Treetops lodge in Kenya. Unknown to them at the time, she would receive news of her father’s death during that visit, and the forest lodge would long be remembered as the place where Britain’s longest-serving monarch “went to sleep a princess and awoke a queen”.

Just two years after her visit, the Mau Mau, Kenyan freedom fighters opposed to British colonial rule, burned the lodge down. It was rebuilt in 1957, and older residents who live along the long and winding path to the lodge remembered her second visit to the area in 1983 fondly, saying it had placed their neighbourhood on the map. But Treetops was not open for the end of the Queen’s life. It closed its doors last year after a dive in tourism during the pandemic forced it out of business.

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Kenya’s supreme court upholds William Ruto’s win in presidential election

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Court dismisses opposition’s challenge against August’s vote that alleged fraud and voter suppression

Kenya’s supreme court has confirmed William Ruto as winner of the country’s disputed national vote, ending weeks of political uncertainty after the opposition – and election officials – questioned the count.

Ruto was announced winner on 15 August amid a divide within the electoral commission over the declared outcome, which showed that the vice-president had gained 50.5% of the vote, beating the longtime opposition leader, Raila Odinga, and narrowly avoiding a runoff.

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‘We need your help’: Bishops plead with UK to aid drought-ravaged Horn of Africa

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Open letter from 44 Anglican leaders contrasts ‘generous’ British response to Ukraine with ‘dire need’ still unmet in their countries

Dozens of bishops from drought-ravaged east Africa have appealed to the UK government to urgently get more funding to those in need, warning that Britain’s rapid response to the Ukraine crisis must not come at the expense of lives elsewhere.

As the worst drought for four decades tightens its grip on Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, with millions facing acute hunger, the group of 44 Anglican bishops criticised the international community for not paying attention to early warnings or backing up rhetoric with sufficient funds.

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