Kenyan police fire teargas to break slum protests

Supporters of Kenyan National Super Alliance (NASA) leader Raila Odinga burn a police vehicle in Nairobi. File picture: Charles Onyango/Xinhua

Supporters of Kenyan National Super Alliance (NASA) leader Raila Odinga burn a police vehicle in Nairobi. File picture: Charles Onyango/Xinhua

Published Nov 19, 2017

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Nairobi - Kenyan police fired teargas to disperse a crowd that was protesting on Sunday against the overnight murder of four people in a slum in the capital Nairobi, a Reuters witness said.

Parts of the city have been gripped by tension since Friday when at least five people were killed in violence between the police and opposition supporters who were accompanying their leader Raila Odinga after a trip abroad.

Japheth Koome, the police commander in the city, said investigations had started after four bodies were found in the Mathare Area Four slum on Sunday morning.

"We went there and found those bodies with injuries," he told a news conference, describing the murders as a criminal act rather than ethnic-driven violence.

The violence comes a day before the Supreme Court rules on two cases seeking to nullify the re-election of President Uhuru Kenyatta in a repeat vote last month.

Odinga visited the scene of the killings on Sunday and later police fired teargas to disperse crowds that were gathering to protest. 

Reuters

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