Kenyan police fired tear gas at a small number of protestors in Nairobi on Tuesday, as the opposition restarted anti-government protests after a one-month hiatus.
In March, the major opposition alliance held three days of protests to protest high living expenses and alleged electoral fraud in last year’s election, which its leader Raila Odinga lost to President Williams Ruto.
Those protests were marred by clashes between police and demonstrators, as well as sporadic acts of violence, including one that Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki described as “ethnically-laced arson” when a church and mosque were set on fire in Nairobi’s Kibera neighbourhood.
Odinga called a halt to the protests in early April, promising to meet with Ruto’s officials. However, he later declared that the protests would resume, accusing the government of failing to negotiate in good faith.
On Tuesday, a Kenyan television station broadcast images of police using tear gas to disperse a small group of demonstrators in Nairobi’s Mathare slum, as well as footage of a minivan that had been set ablaze on a route heading to the city centre.
A newspaper photographer saw a caravan on fire on a key bypass road that round the metropolis.
There was a considerable police presence in the central business centre, and several stores stayed closed. The police declared on Monday that the demonstrations would be illegal.
The demonstrations will take place, according to Odinga’s Azimio La Umoja (Declaration of Unity) group.
