Several killed as Kenyan police open fire on anti-tax bill protesters

Several people have been killed after police fired live rounds at protesters trying to storm Kenya’s legislature, where lawmakers voted to pass a contentious finance bill that would hike taxes.

Thousands of people joined the youth-led demonstration in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Tuesday to demand that lawmakers vote against the bill amid soaring tensions over a cost-of-living crisis in the country.

But legislators voted to pass the bill, and some then fled the chamber as protesters breached the complex of the Parliament of Kenya. Parts of the Parliament building were set ablaze.

Police eventually managed to drive the protesters from the building amid clouds of tear gas and the sound of gunfire. The lawmakers were evacuated through underground tunnels, local media reported.

At least five people were killed and 31 others were wounded, the Kenya Medical Association and several other NGOs said in a statement on Tuesday.

It said that of the wounded, 13 had been shot with live bullets and four with rubber bullets.

“Despite the assurance by the government that the right to assembly would be protected and facilitated, today’s protests have spiraled into violence,” the groups said.

Kenyan President William Ruto said that the security of Kenyans remained his “utmost priority”.

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Ruto called the deadly protests “treasonous”, adding that the debate over the tax increases had been “hijacked by dangerous people”.

Police opened fire after tear gas and water cannon failed to disperse the crowds.

Kenya’s army has been deployed to support the police in controlling the “security emergency” which has resulted in the “destruction and breaching of critical infrastructure”, Defence Minister Aden Duale said in the official gazette.

Al Jazeera’s Malcolm Webb, reporting from outside the Parliament building in central Nairobi, said on Tuesday that he had seen “the body of a young man who was carrying a Kenyan flag” a short while ago.

“He had a bullet hole right in the centre of his forehead,” Webb said.

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“Around us, we can see groups of uniformed police, some carrying weapons for tear gas – of which a lot has been fired – as well as many plainclothes security operators carrying guns,” he said. “We saw some of them earlier shooting into the crowds.”

Internet monitor NetBlocks said on Tuesday that the country’s internet network service is experiencing a major disruption “amidst a deadly crackdown by police”.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is “deeply concerned” by the deadly violence, his spokesman said.

“He’s very much saddened by the reports of deaths and injuries, including journalists and medical personnel,” spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a briefing.

<<Aljazeera>>

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