The government has been urged by a Human Rights Watch (HRW) to conclude the inquiry into the discovery of 17 mutilated bodies at a quarry in Embakasi, Nairobi last year.

HRW and Mukuru Community Social Justice Centre (MCSJC) said they want the state to announce the outcome of the investigations to the public.

They said the inquiry should include allegations of threats and intimidation of Mukuru community members and activists by the police.

In a press statement, Otsieno Nyamwaya, the Associate Director of HRW Africa, said volunteers had claimed that police officers had threatened them and forced them to stop retrieving the bodies.

“The community members and relatives of missing persons have fears that authorities are determined to cover- up the truth about what happened to the victims and who is responsible, and the government agencies have not taken action to address the concerns and clear themselves”, the civil society groups say in the statement.

Dumped in quarry

They add that rather than obstruct the retrieval of bodies, Kenyan police should promptly and thoroughly investigate the circumstances surrounding dumping of bodies at the quarry.

“The Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) should investigate police conduct, including threats to volunteers who helped retrieve bodies from the quarry and ensure the prosecution of those involved in the abuses.”

HRW and MCSJC interviewed 21 people, including relatives of victims whose bodies were retrieved from the quarry, activists involved in the retrieval of bodies, one police officer and Mukuru Kwa Njenga residents.

Researchers also reviewed the autopsy reports of 17 of the bodies retrieved from the quarry and analyzed satellite images of the quarry from mid-June to the end of July.

Nyamwaya says security forces stopped restrained members of Mukuru community from retrieving the bodies since July 12, 2024 when they retrieved the first body from the water-filled abandoned quarry.

He said officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), General Service Unit (GSU) and general duty police officers made concerted effort to stop the retrieval, including ordering volunteers to stop or risk being charged with the deaths.

Nyamwaya sensationally claimed that a number of volunteers involved in retrieving the bodies have been escaping abduction attempts.

One of the volunteers told researchers that he had survived two abduction attempts: the first on July 19, 2024 by 12 armed and uniformed police officers from the GSU and the DCI; and, on November 20, 2024 by two men in civilian clothes accompanied by three uniformed officers from Kware Police Station and an unmarked white Toyota Fielder with tinted windows, according to Nyamwaya.

“President William Ruto should ensure that volunteers who stepped in to retrieve bodies when police were unwilling to do so are not threatened, harassed, or abducted for simply performing their civic duty as good citizens,” the statement reads.