Baby Pendo remembered, parents still demand justice

Five years and three days to the general election, the Kisumu family of Baby Samantha Pendo is yet to get justice for the 2017 police killing of their six-month-old daughter.

Her parents Joseph Abanja and Lencer Achieng are demanding the Justice system fulfil its mandate.

On August 11, Baby Pendo's head was bashed by police in Kisumu’s Nyalenda slums during the post-election violence. Fifty-seven people died.

Baby Pendo died on August 17, 2017, after being in a coma for five days at Aga Khan Hospital in Kisumu.

The chief magistrate's court in Kisumu, following an inquest into Pendo’s death, found the police responsible for her death.

Despite the decision by the court, Baby Pendo's killers are still walking free.

Director of Public Prosecutions Noordin Haji has said those responsible will be prosecuted.

Nothing has happened yet.

On Friday in Nairobi, ODPP head of communications Caro Muema said the Baby Pendo matter was an ongoing case and the ODPP was waiting for evidence for prosecution.

"We do not investigate," she told the Star by phone. The ODPP prosecutes based on the evidence from the investigation team. The case is still pending, it is an ongoing case."

She advised the family to write to relevant authorities to complain about the delays.

This is how it unfolded:

The family was fast asleep on the night Baby Pendo was hit on the head by police officers for no reason.

Abanja, a tuk tuk operator, narrated to the Star how police officers lobbed a teargas canister into the house, forcing the family to open the barricaded door for fresh air.

"There was an inquest but the case has not been taken to court. Someone like me has no voice. It is unfortunate and painful that the people who killed my baby are free

He said police started to beat them with clubs and threatened to shoot them during a door-to-door raid following protests after Uhuru Kenyatta's presidential victory was annulled.

“The officers descended on me and my wife. They hit my wife on her left arm before clobbering the baby on the head,” Abanja said.

Doctors at Aga Khan Hospital said the baby had suffered serious head injury after she was hit with a heavy blunt object.

Abanja, who has never participated in protests, asks why justice has taken so long.

"There was an inquest but the case has not been taken to court. Someone like me has no voice. It is unfortunate and painful that the people who killed my baby are free,” he said.

Though he is still in pain, he will exercise his democratic right to vote on Tuesday.

“If I fail to vote, then it is like electing the wrong leaders," Abanja said.

“I am praying for a peaceful election so that people can go on with their normal activities.”

He expressed fear, however, that there could be violence based on the ugly and inciting words of politicians.

He said he will take his family out of Kisumu before election day. Since Baby Pendo died, he and his wife have two sons, aged three and one.

“There is no need to go to streets to fight for leaders who do not even care about you. Remain focused and work hard for your future,” he said.

Recently, Amnesty International Kenya executive director Haughton Irungu expressed concern over the delayed for victims of PEV and police brutality.

He called on the Office of the DPP and on the Judiciary to expedite the cases. The failure by the Judiciary to provide justice was not only devastating but also hurt lives and livelihoods.

“Kenyans are crying out for expeditious justice, swift prosecution, hearings and determination of cases that would either determine whether the suspects are guilty of murder or should be exonerated.

An inquest found five senior police bosses who served in Kisumu during the 2017 general election culpable for the death of the child. They may not have bashed her head, but they were in charge.

Kisumu senior resident magistrate Beryl Omollo has asked the ODPP  to take appropriate action against chief inspector John Kiringi, inspector Linah Kogei, county commander Titus Yoma, senior superintendents Benjamin Koima and Christopher Maweu with a view to arraigning them.

Omollo said, that "based on the command responsibility in the National Police Service, the commanders in charge of the operations at the Kilo Junction in Nyalenda Estate in Kisumu county on the night of August 11, 2017 and early morning of August 12are found liable for the death of the deceased baby Samantha Pendo."

The finding paved the way for 31 other police officers to be investigated.

“Baby Pendo lived a very short life. And died a very painful death. She died a death too painful to find expression in a normal infant or baby’s speech of expressing pain or discomfort,” Omollo said, just a grip on her mum’s arm.

She graphically explained how police officers smashed Baby Pendo’s head while she was cradled by her mother.

In a moment of wanton and unprovoked violence, police officers, who had been given express orders to protect life and property, had violated both orders.

“I am so happy at last justice has been served. Let my baby rest in peace,” Baby Pendo’s mum, Lencer Achieng, said after the inquest.

According to the magistrate, Baby Pendo was bashed by one of the baton-wielding policemen who had laid siege to her parents’ house.

They were fast asleep — mother and father, Baby Pendo and her sister — when at 12.30am, the screams of a neighbour under attack by police, woke them up.

Panic-stricken, Pendo’s mother and father Joseph Abanja, hesitated.

The sofa, which they use to barricade the door against intruders, briefly held back the police.

Not for long. The magistrate said police shot or lobbed a teargas canister through a crack in the door, into Baby Pendo’s house.

They bolted the door from the outside. The family of four struggled to escape. Abanja got out first, running straight into the baton-wielding men. Then his wife too was forced out by the burning, smothering tear gas.

Baby Pendo lived a very short life. And died a very painful death. She died a death too painful to find expression in a normal infant or baby’s speech of expressing pain or discomfort ... just a grip on her mum’s arm

Wearing only her underwear, she grabbed Baby Pendo to her bosom and ran straight into eight policemen wearing uniforms, jungle green camouflage jackets and green hats, the magistrate said.

“Achieng, had just walked out of the frying pan that their humble dwelling had become — where a choking cloud of tear gas could have easily suffocated her six month old infant — into the fire of the combat-ready policemen.

"[They were] well kitted with protective body armour and were wielding truncheons menacingly taking potshots at their distraught victims,” Omollo said.

Cradling Baby Pendo in her left arm, her mother pleaded with the police to spare her the beatings, especially because of her baby.

One cop hit her on the left side, another struck her backside, forcing her to look back at her assailant. Then the truncheon struck her left side again.

“And then she felt a tight baby’s grip, Samantha Pendo’s tight grip on her mum's left arm, but not even a shriek,” the magistrate said.

"She looked over her left shoulder at her baby, only to see that she was foaming at the mouth, unresponsive and her head was swelling,” the magistrate said.

Shocked and fearful  the police had killed her baby, she took her to her husband, saying “Jose, Jose, wameua mtoto.”

Callously, according to the court, one police officer told Abanja, “Fanyia mtoto first aid, hujui kufanya first aid, vutia mtoto makamasi” (“Give the baby first aid. Don’t you know how to do first aid? Suck the mucus out.”

Abanja did what the policeman told him and handed Pendo over to his brother Morris Abanja. He went in search of his other daughter, Moesha Akinyi, who had escaped into the night.

The nightmare had begun. Achieng was transfixed, not knowing where her other child had gone and whether Baby Pendo would live.

Thomas Abanja, her other brother-in-law, took baby Samantha into his house, to feel her baby’s pulse.

However, a quick-thinking neighbour woman threaded her way into Abanja’s house, got hold of Pendo, and set off, on foot, for the nearest medical facility. It was a few metres away, across the main road, in Kisumu’s upmarket estate of Milimani.

But, when the Good Samaritan and Thomas arrived, the gate of this health facility was locked. They turned to policemen standing by Kilo Junction. Officers chased them away.

When they got to a second upmarket hospital in Milimani. Its gate, too, was locked.

Thomas then got his bicycle. With the Good Samaritan riding the pillion and carrying Baby Pendo, he cycled a few kilometres uphill to the next upmarket facility.

Achieng, now wrapped in a bed sheet, to cover her naked body, followed them on foot.

The third upmarket medical centre was open. However, the medics on duty demanded a Sh1,500, consultation fee, upfront, to attend to  Baby Pendo.

Once again, Thomas got on his bicycle, to go back and fetch the  money for medical consultation.

As Achieng and the Good Samaritan awaited Thomas' return, a sympathetic medic looked at the baby, pulled them aside and said the hospital wasn't able to handle the case.

He sent them to Aga Khan Hospital, a few kilometres away.

The two women set off on foot. Doctors administered first aid and admitted Baby Pendo.

Despite the doctors' and the hospital's best efforts, Baby Pendo succumbed to "a severe head injury caused by blunt force trauma".

She had been comatose in the Intensive Care Unit for five days.

“Many police officers and a couple of medical officers stood by, magistrate Omollo said, offering neither an ambulance nor more treatment, as Baby Pendo haemorrhaging in the head, slowly slipped away.” 

(Edited by V. Graham)

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