BRUTALITY
The violent police crackdown on people suspected to be adherents of the outlawed Mungiki sect in the sprawling Mathare, Valley of Death, in Kenya is still fresh in the minds of many.
The residents of Mathare residents will forever remember June 2007 for it’s the month that armed police backed by the dreaded General Service Unit turned the slum into a killing field to avenge the killing of two colleagues on the night of June 4. A major security operation, which was launched two days later to recover the guns of the slain officers, left a trail of blood and tears in Mathare. In November 2007, a report by a group of Kenyan lawyers was released showing that as many as 8,040 young Kenyans have been executed or tortured to death since 2002, during a five-year police crackdown on the outlawed Mungiki sect, according to a report. Another 4,070 young men have gone missing between August 2002 and August 2007 after being held in police custody, said the report by the Oscar Foundation Free Legal Aid Clinic in Kenya.
