Kenyan military tortured civilians during crackdown: report

A report has found that over 4,000 people in Kenya’s west have been taken in by police and then systematically brutalized as the government sought to put down a regional rebellion.

Soldiers beat their victims, forced them to crawl naked on their stomachs over barbed wire while officers stepped on them…Some prisoners were also sexually assaulted and humiliated, as soldiers inserted gun barrels into the rectums of some victims, forced them to pull each other’s genital organs and suck each other’s breasts

The British and U.S. militaries have long trained Kenya’s army and police, so such behavior is no surprise. Nevertheless, hopefully such torture still retains the power to shock.

The campaign in the west comes after it emerged last year that over 8,000 people had been disappeared by the Kenyan state as it sought to neutralize the Mungiki sect.

It also follows the death of hundreds of people during Kenya’s disputed elections. That violence is perhaps more understandable if the scale of state violence organized from Nairobi is considered.

Kenyan army officers tortured more than 400 people during a recent crackdown on a rebel group, said a report by a rights group on Monday, which characterised the abuse as a crime against humanity.

The Independent Medico-Legal Unit (IMLU) said the army committed systematic abuses as it hunted members of the Sabaot Land Defence Force (SLDF) this year in the Mount Elgon region near the Ugandan border.

Soldiers beat their victims, forced them to crawl naked on their stomachs over barbed wire while officers stepped on them, said the report by the Nairobi-based group.

Some prisoners were also sexually assaulted and humiliated, as soldiers inserted gun barrels into the rectums of some victims, forced them to pull each other’s genital organs and suck each other’s breasts, it added.

Posted by Szamko
Just tries to tell the truth.