A six-month old baby is fighting for her life at Aga Khan Hospital after being injured by anti-riot police in Kilo area, Nyalenda estate, Kisumu town.
The infant sustained serious head injuries after police hit her on the head on Friday night. The baby is in a coma and has internal bleeding in the head.
Dr Sam Oula, the hospital’s medical superintendent, said the baby is seriously ill and in a coma.
“She was brought at the facility between 4am and 5am in the night. So far there is no change … she sustained severe head injuries,” he said.
Oula said there is bleeding inside the brain.
“We are hoping things turn around. We are on treatment … It is a day at a time,” he said on the phone.
When the writer visited the child, she was still in a coma and under close supervision of the medics.
The incident occurred after police raided houses in Nyalenda when residents protested President Uhuru Kenyatta's reelection.
Lencer Achieng, 29, the mother of the child, said police stormed their house at 2am in the night when they were sleeping. The police were conducting house-to-house raids.
She said the police lobbed teargas inside their house to smoke them out after they failed to gain access.
“My husband was forced to open the door as we were being chocked by the teargas,” Achieng said.
"Immediately he opened the door, police dragged out my husband Mary Joseph Abanja, 34, and beat him senseless before turning their anger on me."
Achieng sustained limb and abdominal injuries as she tried to rescue her baby.
“When I fell down, one of the officers hit the baby on the head with a club. She became unconscious and I thought she was dead before we rushed her to hospital,” the mother said.
“We desperately visited a number of hospitals around but all were closed before we took her to Aga Khan.”
Abanja said police raided their house and beat them up yet they were not rioting.
“Police were breaking into peoples’ houses. At my house, they kicked the door but I had placed chairs to block them from accessing. One of them shouted 'Do you know we have guns and we can shoot you, open the door',” he said.
“After I declined to open the door, they threw teargas into my house,"
He said the officers also beat up his eight-year-old child.
Abanja urged local and international human rights groups to investigate the attacks.
He accused the government of terrorising innocent citizens who were quietly sleeping in their houses.
“I am just shocked that police who are suppose to maintain law and order can storm a house of a law abiding citizen and assault them, including an infant,” Abanja added.
The Independent Policing Oversight Authority visited their house, the child at the hospital and promised justice to the family.
The IPOA team collected teargas canister at the victims’ house on Sunday.
In Obunga estate, Kisumu town, Moses Oduor, 28, was inside his house when police stormed in, dragged him out of his bedroom and beat him with clubs.
"My brother was not out fighting them. He was not rioting. He was beaten ruthlessly by the police before being rescued by my sister who lives next to him," his brother Charles Ochieng said.
Kisumu Residents' Voice Association chairman Audi Ogada called for speedy investigations of police brutality.
He said 13 people with bullet wounds are admitted in various hospitals in Kisumu.
“We want police to tell us the whereabouts of bodies, which they collected, because it is key to the families, community and world to know the truth,” he said.
Nyanza regional coordinator Wilson Njega refuted claims that protesters have been killed by police. He said those killed were those looting shops.
By