15 police officers charged with tear gassing family members

Fifteen Kenyan police officers have been charged with tear-gassing and beating a family in their home while enforcing a Covid-19 curfew, a government-run police monitor said on Thursday.

The 15 police and six county enforcement officers will stand trial for assaulting the family in Busia, a western region, during the early days of a strict Coronavirus curfew imposed last March.

"In the incident, police allegedly lobbed teargas into a private home and seriously assaulted the owner, Mr Benard Orenga, his wife, children and neighbours afterwards," the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) said in a statement.

The charges include assault causing actual bodily harm, malicious damage to property and attempting to injure by an explosive substance.

The accused will face court on February 1 in Bungoma, a city in the region.

In June, a court in Kenya charged a police officer with the murder of a 13-year-old boy in a Nairobi slum who was shot dead on the balcony of his home as police used force to clear the streets.

That same month, IPOA said some 15 deaths and "31 incidents where victims sustained injuries" have been "directly linked to actions of police officers during the curfew enforcement".

Kenya's police force is often accused by rights groups of using excessive force and carrying out unlawful killings, especially in poor neighbourhoods.

The violence around curfews sparked protests against police violence. Police used tear gas to break up some of them.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused police officers of murder and using excess force, whippings and tear gas to violently force Kenyans indoors during the early days of the curfew.

Kenya took quick measures to contain the virus when it was first detected in March, imposing not only curfew but closing bars and restaurants and shuttering schools across the country.

The country has been under some form of nighttime curfew ever since, but other measures have eased somewhat and schools reopened to all students this month after some classes partially resumed in October.