The right to life in Kenya is often treated as if it begins at conception and ends at birth. As in much of the world, self-described ‘pro-lifers’ claim to defend life at all costs – yet too often stop short of defending the lives already being lived, and those cut short too early.
Last month, Kenyan authorities exhumed at least 33 bodies – along with four legs and two hands – from a mass grave in Kericho, in the west of the country; eight were adults and 25 newborns, foetuses and infants. The discovery of this mass, illegal grave is reminiscent of 2024, when an unknown number of bodies were dumped in a quarry in Kware. Seven were women, while the rest were reportedly too badly mutilated to be able to determine gender.
Before that, in 2023, authorities exhumed 429 bodies in Shakahola, and at least 19 bodies were found near River Yala between 2020 and 2022. We also remember Denzel Omondi, a student who went missing in the citizen-led protests in June 2024, whose body was found a week later, and the more than 250 Kenyans, mostly men and boys, killed by police, the army and government-sponsored militia during and after the protests of 2024 and 2025.
