outraged

Nairobi, Kenya – On June 7, Albert Ojwang was visiting his parents in his home village of Kakoth in Kenya’s Homa Bay County. His mother had just served him ugali (maize meal) and sukuma wiki (kale) for lunch when police officers on motorbikes arrived at the family’s compound.

Before Ojwang could take a first bite, they arrested him, taking him to the local Mawego police station before transporting him 350km (200 miles) to the Central Police Station in the capital, Nairobi.

The officers told his parents he had committed an abuse against a senior government official and was being arrested for publishing “false information” about the man on social media.

Ojwang, a blogger and teacher, had no criminal record and was just a month shy of his 31st birthday. But it was a celebration he would not live to see because less than a day later he was dead.

Police said he died by suicide after “hitting his head” against the wall of a cell where he was being held alone. But after an uproar from the public and rights groups and further investigation, the claim did not hold up. Eventually, two police officers were arrested.

Still, the public anger that erupted after Ojwang’s death did not abate.

Kenyans have been on tenterhooks since mass antigovernment protests erupted across the country a year ago – first against tax increases in a finance bill and later for the resignation of President William Ruto.

In the time since, police have been accused of human rights abuses, including allegations of government critics and activists being abducted and tortured.

Ojwang was seen by many as yet another victim of a system trying to silence those attempting to hold the government to account.

And in the month since his death, angry protests have soared; state violence – and deaths – against civilians have continued; and young people seem determined not to give in.

‘False and malicious information’

Ojwang was the only child of Eucabeth Ojwang and Meshack Opiyo, a retired quarry worker who had endured hard labour for 20 years in Kilifi County to send his son to school.

Opiyo left the back-breaking job after Albert Ojwang had secured a job as a teacher, hoping his son would help take care of the family after earning a degree in education.

“I had only one child. There’s no daughter. There’s no other son after him,” he told Al Jazeera. “I have suffered … while [working] in a quarry in Timbo for 20 years so that my child could go through school and earn a degree,” he added, saying Ojwang left behind a three-year-old son.

Ojwang was a promising teacher at Kituma Boys’ Secondary School in the coastal Taita Taveta County, about 700km (435 miles) southeast of his childhood home, his family said.

Media reports said he was linked to an account on X that several people used to publish news about Kenya’s government and politics. That’s what drew the attention of the authorities who came to his father’s house that June afternoon.

That day, the arresting officers assured Opiyo his son would be safe when they took him into custody. Overnight, the father left for Nairobi – taking his land title deed with him to use as a surety to bail his son out because he had no other money. But the news he received was of his son’s death.

“I thought we would come and solve this issue. I even have a title deed here in my pocket that I had armed myself with, so that if there were going to be need for bail, we would talk with a lawyer to bail him,” Opiyo told journalists the Sunday morning after his son’s death, having just learned what had happened to him.

Despite police claims that Ojwang died from self-inflicted injuries, his family and the public were sceptical. Human rights advocates and social media users alleged foul play and an official cover-up by police.

As public pressure mounted on the police to offer clarity, Inspector General of Police Douglas Kanja confirmed that his deputy, Eliud Lagat, was the senior official who had made a “formal complaint” that led to Ojwang’s arrest.

“The complaint alleged that false and malicious information had been published against him [Lagat] in the X – that is, formerly Twitter – social media platform. The post claimed that he was involved in corruption within the National Police Service,” Kanja said before Kenya’s Senate and the media on June 11.

At first, Kanja repeated to the media that Ojwang had hit his head on the wall, killing himself in the process. But when questioned by lawmakers in the Senate, he admitted that was incorrect.

“Going by the report that we have gotten from IPOA [Independent Policing Oversight Authority], it is not true; he did not hit his head against the wall,” Kanja said. “I tender my apology on behalf of the National Police Service because of that information.”

A team of five government pathologists also released a report that revealed severe head injuries, neck compression and multiple soft tissue traumas. The cause of Ojwang’s death, they determined, was a result of the injuries, not a self-inflicted incident.

Meanwhile, Ann Wanjiku, the IPOA vice chairperson, told senators that preliminary findings showed Ojwang was alone in the cell but two witnesses who were in the next cell said they heard loud screams from where Ojwang was held.

The IPOA report also suggested there was foul play at the Nairobi Police Station because CCTV cameras had been tampered with on Sunday morning after Ojwang’s death.

Subsequently, several people were arrested and investigated, including two police officers who have been charged.

Police Constable James Mukhwana, an officer arrested and arraigned in court over Ojwang’s death, told IPOA investigators that he had acted on orders of his boss.

“It is an order from the boss. You cannot decline an order from your superior. If you refuse, something may happen to you,” he said in a statement to the IPOA. He added that his superior told him: “I want you to go to the cell and look at those who have been in remand for long. Tell them there is work I want them to do. There is a prisoner being brought in. Take care of him.”

Mukhwana pleaded not guilty in court but said he was sorry about the death in his statement, adding: “Ojwang was not meant to be killed but to be disciplined as per instruction.”

Who is ‘sanctioning’ these killings?

Since Ojwang’s death, Kenyan rights organisations have condemned what they say is his “murder”, calling the failure by authorities to hold accountable those responsible for police brutality as disrespect for human rights.

“The savage beating to death of Albert Ojwang and the subsequent attempts to cover this up shatter once more the reputation of the leadership of the Kenyan Police Service,” Irungu Houghton, the executive director at Amnesty International Kenya, told Al Jazeera.

“Amnesty International Kenya believes the failure to hold officers and their commanders accountable for two successive years of police brutality has bred the current impunity and disrespect for human rights,” he said.

Houghton also called for all those implicated to step aside and allow for investigations to take place.

“To restore public confidence and trust, all officers implicated must be arrested. … Investigations must be fair, thorough and swift. This moment demands no less.”

Amnesty has previously called out police abuses, including “excessive force and violence during protests”, and reported abductions of civilians by security forces. Rights groups said more than 90 people have been forcibly disappeared since June 2024.

“Albert Ojwang’s killing in a police station comes after persistent repeated police denials that the normal chain of police command is not responsible for the 65 deaths and 90-plus enforced disappearances seen in 2024,” Houghton said.

“Who are the officers abducting and killing those who criticise the state? Who is sanctioning or instructing these officers? Why has the government found it so difficult to trigger deep reforms to protect rather than stifle Kenyans’ constitutional freedom of speech and assembly as well as act on public policy opinion?” he asked.

Speaking in an interview with Kenya’s TV47 on June 24, the National Police Service Spokesperson Michael Muchiri acknowledged police brutality within the service, saying it was wrong.

“We accept and we acknowledge that within our ranks, we’ve gotten it wrong multiple times,” he said. But he added: “An act by one of us, and there have been a couple of them many times over, should not in any way be a reflection of the whole organisation.”

Al Jazeera reached out to Deputy Inspector General of Police Lagat to comment on the allegations against him, but he did not respond.

Shot at protests

Many of the Kenyans reportedly targeted by police and other “state agents” were young, vocal participants in the antigovernment protests that engulfed the capital and other cities last year.

After Ojwang’s death, the Gen Z protesters once again erupted in anger.

On June 17, they staged a demonstration in Nairobi to demand justice for their fallen comrade. Things soon got out of hand as the police used force, resulting in fatalities among the young people.

Boniface Kariuki, a mask vendor in Nairobi, was caught between the police and protesters, and the police fired a rubber bullet at his head at close range, sending him to an intensive care unit at the Kenyatta National Hospital. He was declared brain dead after a few days and died on June 30.

An autopsy report released on Thursday said Kariuki “died from severe head injuries caused by a single close-range gunshot”. It further revealed that four bullet fragments remained lodged in his brain.

Two officers who had been caught on camera firing the deadly bullet have been charged.

This came about the time Kenyan youth also marked a year since the antigovernment protests began on June 25, 2024.

In line with the anniversary, many young people across the country took to the streets to express their anger against the government.

Those protests also became violent. Many businesses were destroyed in Nairobi, and some police stations in other places were set ablaze.

That same day, three 17-year-olds, among others, were shot dead in different parts of the country. While the police have not commented on the deaths, the victims’ families and rights groups say all three were killed in crossfire during the protests.

Dennis Njuguna, a student in his final year of secondary school, was shot in Molo, Nakuru County, as he headed home from school for his mid-term break.

In Nairobi’s Roysambu area on the Thika Superhighway, police reportedly also shot dead Elijah Muthoka, whose mother said he had gone to a tailor but did not come back. That evening, she would receive the news that he was hospitalised at the nearby Uhai Neema Hospital. He was then transferred to the Kenyatta National Hospital and pronounced dead the next morning.

Outside Nairobi in Olkalou, Nyandarua County, Brian Ndung’u was shot twice in the head, according to an autopsy report released by pathologists at the JM Kariuki County Referral Hospital. Margaret Gichuki, Ndung’u’s sister, said her brother had just completed his secondary school education and learned photography so he could help raise his college fees together with their mother, who is a daily wage labourer.

“He had gone out to do street photography, which was his passion, and that is where he got shot. I was home and learned about his shooting through Facebook images that were shared by friends,” Gichuki told Al Jazeera.

Gichuki described her brother as a hardworking young man who had a lot of dreams, but which were cut short by the bullet. “After the autopsy, we could not get further information about the identity of the bullet that was removed from his head, as the police took it,” she said, explaining that one bullet was fragmented in his brain while another was removed by doctors and handed to the police during autopsy.

Together with their cousin Margaret Wanjiku, Gichuki then called to inform their mother that Ndung’u was missing – not wanting to immediately shock her with the news that her son had died.

“Ndung’u had been pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital, but this was news that carried weight for [our mother], and we wanted to have her come home before we could break it other than tell her over the phone,” Wanjiku said.

‘Surge’ in harassment

Less than two weeks after that, Kenyans again took to the streets in demonstrations that once again turned deadly.

On Monday, they rallied for “Saba Saba” meaning “Seven Seven” in Kiswahili to mark the date on July 7, 1990, when people demanded a return to multiparty democracy after years of rule by then-President Daniel arap Moi.

This year, the protest turned into a wider call for Ruto to resign and also a moment to remember Ojwang.

Four days earlier, Ojwang’s body had arrived at his home in Homa Bay for a nighttime vigil before his burial the next day.

When it arrived, angry youth took hold of the coffin and marched with it to the Mawego police station, where he was last seen alive before he was taken to Nairobi.

At the station, the youth set the station ablaze before making their way back to Ojwang’s home with his body.

The next day at the funeral, Anna Ngumi, a friend of Ojwang’s, told mourners: “We are not going to rest. We are not going to rest until justice is done. Remember we are still celebrating Seven Seven here. We will do Seven Seven for Albert Ojwang.”

But at the rallies, police were once again heavy-handed. In Nairobi, they fired live rounds and water cannon at the protesters. Eleven people were killed.

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights said people were also abducted and arrested, adding that it was “deeply concerned by the recent surge in harassment and persecution of Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) accused of organizing the ongoing protests”.

‘Why did you kill my child?’

Within his circles, Ojwang is said to have been a humble person who never quarrelled with anyone and instead sought peace whenever there was a conflict.

His university friend Daniel Mushwahili said Ojwang was modest and sociable.

“I knew this person as a very cool and outgoing person. He had many friends. … He was not an arrogant person, not a bully, and did not even participate in harassing anybody,” Mushwahili said. He was “a person who seeks peace”.

Ojwang’s mother Eucabeth, speaking at a reception by comedian Eric Omondi, lamented her son’s killing, saying she had lost her only child and did not know how the family would cope without him.

“I had hope this child would assist me in building a house. He even had a project to plant vegetables, so we could sell and make money. Now I don’t know where to start without him,” she said.

“I feel a lot of pain because there are people who came home and took my son. … I feel a lot of pain because he is dead.”

Meanwhile, as the investigation into Ojwang’s death continues, his father says he misses his “trustworthy” son, who he relied on to take care of the family’s most valuable things, even with the little they had.

Opiyo said that when the officers came to their house to arrest his son, they saw how little the family had and knew they would not fight back. In his grief, he said he now wants answers from the police and in particular Deputy Inspector General Lagat, who made the complaint against Ojwang.

“Today, my son is dead from injuries inflicted through beating. I need you to explain to me why you killed my child,” Opiyo said.

“My son did not die in an accident or in war. He died in silence in the hands of those who were supposed to protect him.”

The Timothy Spall and Gwyneth Keyworth-fronted series has been hit with complaints just minutes in

Death Valley faced a storm of criticism as viewers claimed to “switch off” just minutes into the third episode.

The six-part drama, which aired its third episode on Sunday, June 8, features Timothy Spall as John Chapel and Gwyneth Keyworth as DS Janie Mallowan delving into the mysterious demise of a best man, reports the Express.

However, despite attracting viewers’ eyes, it was for all the wrong reasons. Disgruntled fans didn’t hesitate to blast the show on social media, with one irate viewer proclaiming: “What on earth is this s***?” (sic)

“#DeathValley No wonder everyone is talking about it… It’s utter drivel and woke toboot. Refund the BBC if this is the best they can s**t out.” (sic)

Another disgruntled fan expressed their dismay: “Heard it was bad, but jeezo it’s horrendously bad. The lead lady is soooo irritating and the script is chronically unfunny. A new low for BBC Sunday night viewing, absolutely horrendous.”

Frustration peaked for some, prompting them to turn off their TVs, as one viewer confessed: “Caught up with #DeathValley on BBC1. I love stuff staring Timothy Spall but just had to turn off after a few minutes due to the awful co-star detective played by Gwyneth Keyworth shouting all the time. She must be one of the most annoying TV characters ever.”

Further amplifying the chorus of disapproval, another comment stated: “I’m on the third episode of “Death Valley” – I really gave it a try, but it really doesn’t get on me. I can’t stand the main characters, they are cringe… in general I really like those shows, but this I’ll skip and that Ludwig will return soon.”

One viewer was utterly unimpressed, venting on social media: “#DeathValley on BBC1 is one of the worst programmes I’ve ever sat through!”.

Nonetheless, despite some viewers knocking the series, others have expressed their enjoyment, with a fan sharing: “I know a lot of people seem to enjoy slagging off #DeathValley, and I admit that when I saw the initial trailer, I thought it looked poor.

“However, having binged the series the other day, I can quash my original reticence & say that I loved it. Daft, funny, cosy & Welsh.”

Another viewer chimed in with support: “Enjoying #DeathValley too. It’s Sunday night viewing and I remember ‘By the Sword Divided’ and ‘The Pallisers’ so this is quite fun.”

In spite of receiving a volley of criticism, Death Valley has shown impressive resilience in viewing figures, as disclosed by the BBC. The show’s inaugural episode, which premiered on 25 May, captivated a substantial audience of 2.9 million on BBC One.

This debut not only becomes the most viewed launch for a new BBC Scripted Comedy in the past five years but also eclipses Ludwig’s premiere last September, which attracted an audience of 2.8 million.

You can catch up on Death Valley on BBC iPlayer

Their situation seemed desperate; their demeanour, portrayed in several videos published by news outlets, was sour.

On a recent weekday in March, men, women, and even children – all with their belongings heaped on their heads or strapped to their bodies – disembarked from the ferry they say they were forcibly hauled onto from the vast northwest African nation of Mauritania to the Senegalese town of Rosso, on the banks of the Senegal River.

Their offence? Being migrants from the region, they told reporters, regardless of whether they had legal residency papers.

“We suffered there,” one woman told France’s TV5 Monde, a baby perched on her hip. “It was really bad.”

The deportees are among hundreds of West Africans who have been rounded up by Mauritanian security forces, detained, and sent over the border to Senegal and Mali in recent months, human rights groups say.

According to one estimate from the Mauritanian Association for Human Rights (AMDH),1,200 people were pushed back in March alone, even though about 700 of them had residence permits.

Those pushed back told reporters about being randomly approached for questioning before being arrested, detained for days in tight prison cells with insufficient food and water, and tortured. Many people remained in prison in Mauritania, they said.

The largely desert country – which has signed expensive deals with the European Union to keep migrants from taking the risky boat journey across the Atlantic Ocean to Western shores – has called the pushbacks necessary to crack down on human smuggling networks.

However, its statements have done little to calm rare anger from its neighbours, Mali and Senegal, whose citizens make up a huge number of those sent back.

Mali’s government, in a statement in March, expressed “indignation” at the treatment of its nationals, adding that “the conditions of arrest are in flagrant violation of human rights and the rights of migrants in particular.”

In Senegal, a member of parliament called the pushbacks “xenophobic” and urged the government to launch an investigation.

“We’ve seen these kinds of pushbacks in the past but it is at an intensity we’ve never seen before in terms of the number of people deported and the violence used,” Hassan Ould Moctar, a migration researcher at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, told Al Jazeera.

The blame, the researcher said, was largely to be put on the EU. On one hand, Mauritania was likely under pressure from Brussels, and on the other hand, it was also likely reacting to controversial rumours that migrants deported from Europe would be resettled in the country despite Nouakchott’s denial of such an agreement.

Is Mauritania the EU’s external border?

Mauritania, on the edge of the Atlantic, is one of the closest points from the continent to Spain’s Canary Islands. That makes it a popular departure point for migrants who crowd the coastal capital, Nouakchott, and the commercial northern city of Nouadhibou. Most are trying to reach the Canaries, a Spanish enclave closer to the African continent than to Europe, from where they can seek asylum.

Due to its role as a transit hub, the EU has befriended Nouakchott – as well as the major transit points of Morocco and Senegal – since the 2000s, pumping funds to enable security officials there to prevent irregular migrants from embarking on the crossing.

However, the EU honed in on Mauritania with renewed vigour last year after the number of people travelling from the country shot up to unusual levels, making it the number one departure point.

About 83 percent of the 7,270 people who arrived in the Canaries in January 2024 travelled from Mauritania, migrant advocacy group Caminando Fronteras (CF) noted in a report last year. That number represented a 1,184 percent increase compared with January 2023, when most people were leaving Senegal. Some 3,600 died on the Mauritania-Atlantic route between January and April 2024, CF noted.

Analysts, and the EU, link the surge to upheavals wracking the Sahel, from Mali to Niger, including coups and attacks by several armed groups looking to build caliphates. In Mali, attacks on local communities by armed groups and government forces suspicious of locals have forced hundreds over the border into Mauritania in recent weeks.

Ibrahim Drame of the Senegalese Red Cross in the border town of Rosso told Al Jazeera the migrant raids began in January after a new immigration law went into force, requiring a residence permit for any foreigner living on Mauritanian soil. However, he said most people have not had an opportunity to apply for those permits. Before this, nationals of countries like Senegal and Mali enjoyed free movement under bilateral agreements.

“Raids have been organised day and night, in large markets, around bus stations, and on the main streets,” Drame noted, adding that those affected are receiving dwindling shelter and food support from the Red Cross, and included migrants from Togo, Nigeria, Niger, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea Conakry, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana and Benin.

“Hundreds of them were even hunted down in their homes or workplaces, without receiving the slightest explanation … mainly women, children, people with chronic illnesses in a situation of extreme vulnerability and stripped of all their belongings, even their mobile phones,” Drame said.

Last February, European Commission head, Ursula von der Leyen, visited President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani in Nouakchott to sign a 210 million euro ($235m) “migrant partnership agreement”. The EU said the agreement was meant to intensify “border security cooperation” with Frontex, the EU border agency, and dismantle smuggler networks. The bloc has promised an additional 4 million euros ($4.49m) this year to provide food, medical, and psychosocial support to migrants.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was also in Mauritania in August to sign a separate border security agreement.

Fear and pain from a dark past

Black Mauritanians in the country, meanwhile, say the pushback campaign has awakened feelings of exclusion and forced displacement carried by their communities. Some fear the deportations may be directed at them.

Activist Abdoulaye Sow, founder of the US-based Mauritanian Network for Human Rights in the US (MNHRUS), told Al Jazeera that to understand why Black people in the country feel threatened, there’s a need to understand the country’s painful past.

Located at a confluence where the Arab world meets Sub-Saharan Africa, Mauritania has historically been racially segregated, with the Arab-Berber political elite dominating over the Black population, some of whom were previously, or are still, enslaved. It was only in 1981 that Mauritania passed a law abolishing slavery, but the practice still exists, according to rights groups.

Dark-skinned Black Mauritanians are composed of Haratines, an Arabic-speaking group descended from formerly enslaved peoples. There are also non-Arabic speaking groups like the Fulani and Wolof, who are predominantly from the Senegal border area in the country’s south.

Black Mauritanians, Sow said, were once similarly deported en masse in trucks from the country to Senegal. It dates back to April 1989, when simmering tensions between Mauritanian herders and Senegalese farmers in border communities erupted and led to the 1989-1991 Border War between the two countries. Both sides deployed their militaries in heavy gunfire battles. In Senegal, mobs attacked Mauritanian traders, and in Mauritania, security forces cracked down on Senegalese nationals.

Because a Black liberation movement was also growing at the time, and the Mauritanian military government was fearful of a coup, it cracked down on Black Mauritanians, too.

By 1991, there were refugees on either side in the thousands. However, after peace came about, the Mauritanian government expelled thousands of Black Mauritanians under the guise of repatriating Senegalese refugees. Some 60,000 people were forced into Senegal. Many lost important citizenship and property documents in the process.

“I was a victim too,” Sow said. “It wasn’t safe for Blacks who don’t speak Arabic. I witnessed armed people going house to house and asking people if they were Mauritanian, beating them, even killing them.”

Sow said it is why the deportation of sub-Saharan migrants is scaring the community. Although he has written open letters to the government warning of how Black people could be affected, he said there has been no response.

“When they started these recent deportations again, I knew where they were going, and we’ve already heard of a Black Mauritanian deported to Mali. We’ve been sounding the alarm for so long, but the government is not responsive.”

The Mauritanian government directed Al Jazeera to an earlier statement it released regarding the deportations, but did not address allegations of possible forced expulsions of Black Mauritanians.

In the statement, the government said it welcomed legal migrants from neighbouring countries, and that it was targeting irregular migrants and smuggling networks.

“Mauritania has made significant efforts to enable West African nationals to regularise their residence status by obtaining resident cards following simplified procedures,” the statement read.

Although Mauritania eventually agreed to take back its nationals between 2007 and 2012, many Afro-Mauritanians still do not have documents proving their citizenship as successive administrations implement fluctuating documentation and census laws. Tens of thousands are presently stateless, Sow said. At least 16,000 refugees chose to stay back in Senegal to avoid persecution in Mauritania.

Sow said the fear of another forced deportation comes on top of other issues, including national laws that require students in all schools to learn in Arabic, irrespective of their culture. Arabic is Mauritania’s lingua franca, but Afro-Mauritanians who speak languages like Wolof or Pula are against what they call “forced Arabisation”. Sow says it is “cultural genocide”.

Despite new residence permit laws in place, Sow added, migrants, as well as the Black Mauritanian population, should be protected.

“Whether they are migrants or not, they have their rights as people, as humans,” he said.