Kenya: Election Riots Continue, Leaving 11 Dead
President Uhuru Kenyatta may have officially been declared President of Kenya, but opposition leaders are calling the election and eventual results a “sham”. They have refused to accept the outcome of the vote, leading to riots and protests in several parts of the country, since the election on Tuesday.
Kenyatta was declared president on Friday night, three days after Kenyans took to the polls to vote.
Primary opposition leader, Raila Odinga, of the National Super Alliance coalition, has claimed that the election was rigged, and that he should’ve been declared president.
Odinga’s allegations have sparked increasingly violent protests by opposition supporters. Several riots broke out in the slums of Nairobi over the weekend, where protesters clashed with police, leaving at least 11 people dead and several others wounded.
According to Kenyan police, the most violent riots took place in Kibera, Kawangware and Mathare slums.
While no official number of fatalities has been released (media organisation AFP estimates that the death toll stands at 17), Doctors Without Borders has confirmed that they have treated at least 54 wounded people at their clinics across the country.
However, the opposition claims that more than 100 people have been killed by police.
In response to this claim, the government has said that their main goal is to protect the country’s citizens, and that the police force “have not used live bullets on protesters”.
Human rights groups, Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch, have called on the Kenyan police force to exercise restraint when it comes to controlling the protesters.
Johnson Muthama, an official spokesperson for the National Super Alliance, said that the opposition will not back down in their effort to prove that the election was rigged and the results false.
“We will not be cowed, we will not relent…We wish to assure the people that we have the will, the determination, and the means to make sure your vote will count at the end of the day…We will communicate our next course of action at the appropriate time. For now, we appeal to our supporters and Kenyans to stay out of harm’s way [sic],” he said.
