How many Kenyans have really died in protests since last year?
The answer depends on who you ask. The Independent Policing Oversight Authority, the official police watchdog, says it has independently documented 65 fatalities between 2024 and July 2025.
Yet the National Police Service has only admitted to five of those deaths. This is not a clerical error by the police. It is a deliberate breach of the law, which compels the police to report every protest-related death to IPOA.
Civil society groups say the toll is even higher.
The Kenya Human Rights Commission reported that at least 63 Kenyans were killed by police bullets during the Finance Bill protests in mid-2024 alone. In partnership with Missing Voices, KHRC further documented 159 cases of extrajudicial killings and disappearances that year, with most linked to police actions.
The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights also counted 39 deaths in the same protests.
Numbers vary, but all point in the same direction: far more people have been killed than police are willing to admit. This concealment is unacceptable. Hiding bodies behind statistics denies families justice and robs citizens of truth. It corrodes trust in the very institution sworn to protect life.
IPOA must dig deeper, beyond the 65 it has documented. Families need answers. Mortuaries and communities need to be heard.
Police officers and their commanders must be held accountable for every omission. The Inspector General of Police must end the culture of denial and ensure officers cannot operate in the shadows.
Quote of the Day: "A man feared that he might find an assassin; Another that he might find a victim. One was more wise than the other." –American novelist Stephen Crane was threatened with arrest after intervening when a woman he was interviewing, Dora Clark, was arrested on suspicion of prostitution on September 16, 1896
