Female rights activists in Mombasa have called for justice after a 30-year-old woman who was allegedly shot by her husband died from her injuries.
Emily Musita, 30, was shot on December 6 by Meshach Kosgei, a police officer stationed at Bamburi police station.
The officer reportedly shot the mother of two twice on her thighs and ones in the stomach in the presence of their one-year-old child.
Topister Juma from the Muslim for Human Rights (MUHURI) said Musita died on Thursday night at the Coast General Teaching and Referral Hospital where she was receiving her treatment.
"As women, we are so sadden with this incident. Musita has been going through difficulties in her marriage and the situation worsened to an extent where her husband shot her," she said.
Juma said Musita died with a bullet still lodged in her stomach.
"The deceased died a very painful death, her body had started decomposing due to the bullet in the body."
The perpetrator was arrested and is being held at the Central Police station awaiting to be arraigned in court on Monday for murder.
The police officers requested for ten days to complete investigations as the body awaits postmortem on Wednesday next week.
Juma said the human rights fraternity condemns the incident and will follow up the case to ensure justice is served.
"The work of a police officer is to protect people not exploit them and if there was a problem, why did he not come out to seek for advise so that we help him solve his marriage problem? Why did he take the law in his hands and shoot a mother in front of her one-year-old child?"
Juma said that sexual and gender based violence cases are on the rise and called on the national government under the ministry of Gender and Public Service to treat the problem as a chronic disease.
She said that women are being harassed, tortured and killed everyday in mysterious ways.
"Why is that in Kenya, we still have SGBV cases? We have seen men being beaten but they do not come out to report, these women who are coming out, why are they not being helped?" Juma posed.
"We have seen so many cases on social media where a woman has even had her hand chopped off. We want to tell women that if a marriage is not working out, pack your things and go," Juma said.
