Police fatalities
on A Serendipitous Journey (Kenya), 13/Jan/2010 21:48, 34 days ago
During my time in Canada, tragically, a police officer in the nation’s capital was murdered in the line of duty. This was devastating for the police force, his family and the community alike. It made headlines of all major TV stations and newspapers and an entire section of the city was closed for a funeral procession with hundreds of fellow police officers, community members and government officials in attendance.I was surprised, however, to learn that his death was the first in the nation’s capital in more than 25 years. (I can’t imagine this would be true of the majority of capital cities in the world.)This led me to wonder how many police officers die in the line of duty in Kenya’s capital city and what kind of recognition they receive? I haven’t yet been able to find stats for Nairobi specifically, but an article from mid-December 2009 indicated that 28 officers died in the line of duty in Kenya last year. (1) Some officers were shot and killed in ambushes by criminal gangs and bandits, while others were lynched by mobs while trying to enforce the law or run over by motorists. Between 1913 and 2008, 389 officers were killed in the line of duty, an average of 4 fatalities in a year. Citing the upward trend of police officer deaths in Kenya, the Vice Chairman ofthe Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, Hassan Omar Hassan, has cited an outright war on police citing “a clear sign of deliberate attacks targeting police officers by criminals." (2)(1) http://allafrica.com/stories/200912040776.html(2) http://allafrica.com/stories/200907270864.html