Kenyan police said they have arrested more than 270 people masquerading as protesters who are suspected of going on a criminal rampage during anti-government rallies on Tuesday.
Widespread looting and property damage were reported during the youth-led demonstrations in various cities across the country, which some protesters said had been infiltrated by “goons.”
“Security forces across the country singled out suspects found engaging in criminal activities in the guise of protesting, and took them to custody,” the Directorate of Criminal Investigations said in a statement posted on X, formerly Twitter, late Tuesday.
It said 204 suspects were arrested in the capital Nairobi and another 68 in other areas of the country.
“The DCI has further deployed scrupulous investigators across the affected regions to pursue suspects captured on CCTV cameras and mobile phone recordings violently robbing, stealing, and destroying properties and businesses of innocent citizens,” the statement added.
Tuesday’s demonstrations began in an atmosphere of calm. Still, they later degenerated into violence, with police firing tear gas at rock-throwing crowds in Nairobi and scenes of looting and property damage in the capital and other cities.
“Goons have infiltrated,” prominent Gen-Z protester Hanifa Adan posted on X on Tuesday.
Young Gen-Z Kenyans launched protests last month against a deeply unpopular finance bill that contained a raft of new taxes, adding to the hardship of people already suffering a cost of living crisis.
The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) said on Monday that 39 people had been killed and 361 injured during two weeks of rallies — with the worst violence occurring in Nairobi on Tuesday last week — and condemned the use of force against demonstrators as “excessive and disproportionate.”
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