Boy, 13, from Kenya, was killed on his balcony after police opened fire while enforcing coronavirus curfew.
Yasin Hussein Moyo, the 13-year-old victim, was standing on the balcony of his own home. Only 20 minutes after curfew fell, the young boy was reportedly fatally hit in the stomach by an officer’s bullet.
Witnesses claim they saw cops aiming at the house. Kenya’s police inspector general promised an investigation into the “stray bullet”. Yasin’s siblings reported they saw a targeting light on the balcony right before the boy was killed.
When Yasin’s mother heard the gunfire right after the 7 pm curfew, she told her children to go upstairs because she thought it would be safer. The moment the kids noticed the targeting light and heard another gunshot, they quickly scattered. Only Yasin “just stood there, stunned” according to his 19-year-old sister.
A neighbor of theirs, Hadijah Mamo, who says she heard the gunfire and saw tear gas, said:
“I could see police aiming at the building. I heard people screaming that the boy had been shot.”
Yasin’s mother rushed to see if her children are okay. What she found was her son bleeding from the abdomen.
The boy said to his mother: “Look, mum, it hit me.” A few hours after midnight, Yasin passed away.
The boy’s father, Hussein Moyo, was devastated. He furiously said that police come in screaming and beating the people as if they were animals, even though they are “law-abiding citizens”.
This wasn’t the first case police in Kenya has been accused of using the pandemic measures to abuse their powers. Hamisi Juma Mbega, a motorcycle taxi driver, was beaten to death after breaching the curfew to take a pregnant woman to hospital in Mombasa, reported by AP.
Moreover, cell phone footage from the country has shown people cruelly beaten and whipped with batons for disobeying the lockdown.
By April 2, Kenya has 81 reported coronavirus cases and one death. However, the testing is likely far behind most developed countries.
