Mourners clash with police in Kisumu

BY KEVINE OMOLLO

Kisumu, Kenya: Members of the public and the police in Kisumu city were on Friday engaged in running battles after the police tried to block mourners.

The mourners wanted to access the central business district  (CBD) so that they could demonstrate against rising insecurity in the area. They were carrying bodies of the people who were killed recently during the Nyakach-Kericho border clashes.

The hundreds of people who matched from New Nyanza Provincial Hospital Mortuary overpowered police and pushed their way into the CBD and police were forced to watch them helplessly.

Kisumu Central Officer Commanding Police Division (OCPD) Musa Kongoli had issued a notice instructing the mourners led by Nyakach MP Aduma Owuor to keep of the CBD after allegations that the legislator wanted to use the forum to incite residents.

Owuor  had secured a license to use Kisumu’s Jomo Kenyatta Sports Ground to be used for a joint mass for five bodies of the victims were killed in Nyakach.

The five men who will be laid to rest on Friday were victims of the last month’s one week fight between communities living along the boarder.

Over 50 houses were torched and 1000 people displaced before calm returned after a dialogue between leaders from the two counties.

On Friday, Jomo Kenyatta Sports Ground was surrounded by hundreds of armed police, some in civilian attire to keep off members of the public from accessing the venue.

The meeting was however moved to the mortuary grounds where leaders including Kisumu Senator Anyang’ Nyong’o and MPs Aduma Owuor (Nyakach), Aluoch Olago (Kisumu-West), Gedeon Ochanda (Bondo) and Opiyo Wandayi (Ugunja) addressed the people.

The group then matched through the CBD in a fleet of vehicles with five hearses carrying the bodies sandwiched between the private cars and school buses which carried the mourners.

Five police land rovers which were parked on the various routes within the CBD failed to contain the mourners who got onto Mosque Road into Oginga Odinga Street then to Jomo Kenyatta Highway before leaving through Nairobi road.

“Every Kenyan has freedom of peaceful congregation and movement and we cannot donate it to please someone,” Mr Owuor said.

The four leaders accompanied the bodies through the streets of Kisumu and to Nyakach where they will be buried on Saturday.