Police shoot dead 8 suspects in Nairobi's Industrial Area
What you need to know:
- Only two of the suspects have been identified: Amos Wafula, 21, and Elisha Mwashigadi, 24.
- Undercover officers rushed to the scene, where they were confronted by seven young men. Three of them were shot dead while the rest escaped with gunshot wounds.
- While still at the scene, the officers heard some people screaming along the stream and they rushed there and found another gang robbing members of the public. They shot dead three other suspects.
- Meanwhile, another “notorious” suspect was shot dead at Imara Daima on Tuesday night.
Questions remained unanswered in the Industrial Area incident where police shot and killed eight suspects on Tuesday evening.
The police, relatives and eyewitnesses have given conflicting reports about the fatal shooting.
While the police insist that there were shootouts between them and the suspects, residents allege extra-judicial killing.
Nairobi County Police Commander Japheth Koome said officers from Reuben Police Post got information that about 12 men armed with pistols and crude weapons were robbing members of the public along Falcon Road.
Undercover officers rushed to the scene, where they were confronted by seven young men who engaged them in a shootout.
Three of them were shot dead while the rest escaped with gunshot wounds, according to the police.
However, the position of three of the bodies did not indicate confrontation or an attempt to escape.
The site had blood strewn on the mabati walls of the neighbouring shanties and fresh miraa was scattered on the ground.
Mr Koome added that while the officers were still at the scene they heard some people screaming along the stream and rushed there only to find another gang robbing members of the public.
They fatally shot three more suspects.
While conducting a search along the stream they found the bodies of two suspects who had died from gunshot wounds in the earlier shootout.
Police said they found five homemade firearms and eight rounds of ammunition. Four of the firearms, police said, were “capable of firing”.
According to police reports, no one was reported to have been robbed of anything.
Also, although the police claimed that there was a shootout, no spent cartridges found at the two scenes could be linked to the suspects.
PROTESTS
Wednesday, residents of Mukuru Kwa Reuben protested the killing of the men.
They held placards as they marched along the narrow footpaths of the densely populated slum calling for the arrest of the officers who shot the eight.
They started their demonstration at the spot where the young men were killed, where they say the police cornered the young men, led them to a secluded spot in the bowels of the slum and shot them.
“Some of those killed are my friends; they are innocent people who were just organising how they will be collecting garbage around here,” a man identified as Mavado told the Nation at the scene.
Ruth Nanjala, the mother of Amos Wafula Obara, 25, said she was at a church choir practice when she received a phone call that her son had been killed.
GARBAGE COLLECTION PROJECT
“I became very confused,” said Ms Nanjala, a domestic worker. “I knew my son as a good man.
“I brought him up in a Christian way. He was my first-born, a very polite and quiet man. I don’t know why they killed him.”
Mr Obara dropped out of Form Three and was doing casual jobs in the slums.
He had earlier told his younger brother, a student at the University of Nairobi, that he and his friends wanted to start a garbage collection project in the slums.
Mr Nickson Obure, 17, whose elder sister Linda Japheth said was a student, was also killed.
Residents called for investigations into the shootings.
“Deadly force should be looked at as an option only when it is believed no other will succeed,” said one of the residents.
