Listen to This Article Enhance your reading experience by listening to this article.

The number of police killings and enforced disappearances reduced last year compared to the previous year, 2022.

A total of 118 people were killed by the police compared to 130 in 2022, representing a reduction of 9.2 per cent.

Further, the number of enforced disappearances recorded were 10 in 2023, compared to 22 in 2022. This represents a reduction of 54.5 per cent in recorded cases.

Pangani police station which was notorious for extra-judicial killings reported a reduction from 30 and 11 in 2021 and 2022, respectively, to only seven cases in 2023.

This is partly attributed to the charging of the notorious Sergeant Rashid Ahmed in court with murder, according to the report.

The Missing Voices Coalition yesterday launched its 2023 Annual Report with the theme “End Police Impunity.”

The Missing Voices Coalition also yesterday revealed that more men were vulnerable to police killings and impunity.

However, whereas more men continue to be killed, the proportion of women victims rose slightly, raising concerns over the phenomenon of ‘femicide’ across the country.

The coalition said the killings attributed this to the concerted advocacy interventions and the trend where police have changed the ways and methods they use to carry out extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances.

Accused of impunity

On Sunday during the burial of the Chief of Defence Forces General Francis Ogolla, President William Ruto also reiterated his commitment to end extrajudicial killings and political assassinations.

However, the report reveals that there has been increased police impunity and increased killings during demonstrations as occasioned during the maandamano period.

The office of the Inspector General of Police Japhet Koome has however been accused of impunity, especially in interfering with the unit that acts as an internal accountability arm of police leading to the stalling of cases involving police impunity.

“In total, 128 people were killed or forcefully disappeared in 2023. This is a 15.8 per cent drop compared to a total of 152 cases recorded in 2022,” the Coalition reported.

According to the Coalition, most of the killings occur during police anti-crime operations by state security agencies. In 2023, 58 people were killed because of anti-crime operations compared to 91 cases during the same period in 2022.

Anti-riot killings, however, increased in 2023 due to the maandamano protests against high cost of living in March and July.

The report further indicates that the anti-terror related killings decreased from 18 in 2022 to one in 2023. “Either the government has implemented a softer approach to dealing with terror-related cases or they have found more discrete ways of executing victims, which do not raise alarm in the wider public,” they said.