— PROJECT NAME
Democracy under fire series
— ROLE
Photojournalist, live reporter
— DATE
August – November 2017
After the first round of presidential election (which were part of the national election in August) protests sparked in many low-income parts of Nairobi like Kibera, one of the biggest slums in Africa. People were setting up burning road blocks, spreading chaos and looting, as the local police likely with the help of army and private contractors hired to contain the protests. Officials claiming they are only using rubber bullets and tear gas grenades, yet many people were killed by live ammunition and brutal beatings in the next events that followed until November.
Many people called the election a fraud, some government officials have been disappearing since July, the election results were hacked and some regions of Kenya didn’t vote. Make angry the supporters of NASA, political leadership of the Lou people, further endangering the tribal conflict in east Africa. The tribal tensions alone costed many lives.
This series has been following the events of the election from August to December 2017 in several parts of Nairobi and the Kisumu region, a stronghold of the opposition candidate party (NASA, NRM).
NASA – Opposition political party led by Raila Odinga
NRM – National Resistance Movement, a street people’s wing created in late 2017 as a response of NASA losing elections, likely part of NASA