According to witness reports, mother and daughter were shot by police/FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 10 — Human Rights Watch is now calling on the National Police Service and the Independent Policing Oversight Authority to launch a probe into Thursday’s reports that Administration Police shot and killed a 12-year-old girl, her mother and middle-aged man on Wednesday.
Otsieno Namwaya, Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch says officers who will be found culpable should be put to book.
During the incident, 7 others are said to have sustained injuries.
“Kenyan authorities should urgently investigate allegations that security officers killed at least three people, including a high school student and injured others during demonstrations in Butula centre, Busia county. Police officers found to have unnecessarily used lethal force should be held to account,” he said.
According to witness accounts, the two were killed when police officers deployed to quell the riots opened fire on angry residents who had threatened to torch an Administration Police camp.
APs from the camp are alleged to have killed the two watchmen during a robbery that occurred at Bumula trading centre.
In the subsequent killings, the young girl died on the spot while the middle-aged man was pronounced dead while undergoing treatment at a nearby hospital.
A local county assembly member, Josephat Wandera, condemned the killing of the watchmen and subsequent deaths in what is likely to draw widespread condemnation given the accusations leveled against APs with regard to extra-judicial killings in the country.
Five AP officers are already facing charges before a Nairobi court on accusations of murdering a city lawyer, Willie Kimani, his client and a taxi driver whose bodies were found dumped in the Ol Donyo Sabuk River after abduction in Mlolongo.
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