Migori residents yesterday paraded the body of a medic shot by police when demonstrating against the Supreme Court ruling on the October 26 repeat presidential election.
According to witnesses, Erick Mandela, a clinical officer at Oruba Nursing Home in Migori town, was helping a demonstrator hurt by police when he was shot.
Mandela was still wearing a white dust coat when he was accosted by police officers with a colleague.
“The colleague lay down on the ground while Mandela was knelt down and raised his hands. He was shot dead by police at close range. He had identified himself as a medic,” a witness said.
Mandela was shot in the groin.
Attempts by police and Kenya Red Cross society volunteers to pick the body failed as a huge crowd defied gunshots and teargas from heavily armed police and took away the body.
Demonstrators picked the corpse still on the stretcher and demonstrated with it throughout Migori town and singled out a police officer in the murder.
“We know the officer who killed Mandela and we want to assure the government that he will never kill all of us until we get justice,” a demonstrator said.
Attempts to take the body to Migori police station were thwarted by police who dispersed the crowd and took the body to Migori Level 4 Hospital mortuary 300 metres away.
At nearby St Joseph Mission Hospital, a woman was admitted after being shot in the buttocks by a stray bullet as several injured demonstrators were taken to hospitals.
A heavy contingent of riot police was deployed around the Supreme Court in Nairobi ahead of the presidential petition ruling.
Roads around the court were barricaded.
More officers were deployed in major slums in the city.
Lorries of riot police were parked in Dandora, Kibera, Kayole, Mathare, Kariobangi and Kawangware, among other areas.
This came after Sunday’s clashes when five people were found murdered in Riverside, Ruaraka constituency.
Police fired teargas as residents demonstrated against the killings.
Nairobi police commander Japhet Koome said the killings were a criminal act and were not ethnically instigated.
NASA leader Raila Odinga alleged that 15 people were killed by police on Friday after police allegedly opened fire on his supporters who had turned up to welcome him back from the USA.
Youths in Migori, Awendo, Rongo and Sori demonstrated and called for secession.
In Migori county, only two subcounties - Kuria East and Kuria West - participated in the October 26 repeat election.
Rongo, Uriri, Awendo, Nyatike, Suna East and West snubbed the polls.
