Police officers at Mpeketoni did not respond on time during a terrorist attack last year and only arrived to collect bodies, according to a human rights report.
The report says officers instead turned on citizens, beating them up instead of taking the injured to hospital.
The report which was released yesterday in Nairobi, exactly a year after the heinous attack, says security officers resorted to rounding up Muslims and Somalis.
Some were held in detention for weeks while others were beaten by security officers, according to Davis Malombe from the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC).
The report says the officers also took so long to respond, giving the attackers ample time to carry their killings.
In the attack at Kakate village on June 23, last year, raiders remained in the village from 8.30pm to 3am, according to interviews with locals.
Titled Insult to injury, the report by the Human Rights Watch and the Kenya National Human Rights Commission says the Kenyan security forces were slow to respond when armed Al-Shabaab militia attacked a passenger bus and at least eight villages in Lamu and Tana River counties.
Raid casualties
The attackers killed 87 people, including four security officers, and destroyed approximately 30 buildings and 50 vehicles.
The Government's response to the June and July 2014 attacks in Lamu and Tana River counties raises many concerns, according to the report.
It says Kenyan security forces were ill-prepared in responding to the attacks and failed to respond promptly or protect villages from imminent threat of continued violence.
"Security forces on the ground lacked sufficient personnel, vehicles, communication equipment, and there was insufficient command and co-ordination," added the report.
The report says on June 14, last year, the attackers were able to take control of Mpeketoni town for more than six hours without any response from security officers, despite the presence of six security stations in the area.
First contingent
"Security officers did not respond until 3am when, according to residents, survivors and
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witnesses of the attack, the first contingent of the Kenya police officers arrived despite police having been informed," said the report.
The officers later in some instances, according to the report, refused to see those who had been injured and later turned on local residents, beating them and demanding guns.
The report said the security officers asked children as young as five years were their fathers' guns were. The children were given hoes and asked to dig around the compound to find the guns.
The beatings, according the report, lasted for more than one hour along the corridors of Mpeketoni Police Station.
"We were made to jump amid whips and then asked to lie flat on the stomach. I was happy to see the officers and hoped my security restored. I still feel pain in the ribs and the chest up to now," a man who had been held for 13 days and released without any charges said in the report.
The organisations now want the Government to acknowledge the scope and gravity of the problem of abusive operations, publicly condemn abuses by security forces, and commit to taking all necessary steps to end these abuses.
They also want the Kenya Defence Forces to investigate the involvement of its troops in abusive operations in Lamu and Tana River.
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