13-year-old shot dead, Kenyan police enforcing curfew blamed

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The bullet struck the 13-year-old as he stood on the balcony of his family’s home with his siblings.

Below, police officers moved through the crowded neighbourhood, enforcing Kenya’s new coronavirus curfew.

Go upstairs, the children’s mother had shouted minutes earlier, as gunfire echoed in the streets.

“We thought it was safer,” the boy’s 19-year-old sister, Aisha Hussein, told The Associated Press.

But on the balcony the children noticed a targeting light, heard another gunshot and scattered.

All but 13-year-old Yasin Hussein Moyo, who “just stood there, stunned,” his sister said.

As he bled from the abdomen and their mother rushed up, the boy said, “Look mum, it hit me.”

His family mourned him Tuesday on the outskirts of Nairobi, washing his small body according to Muslim rite, carrying him in a crowd through the street to the cemetery and burying him in the dirt with their bare hands.

The killing might be the latest example of police abuse of coronavirus restrictions seen in several African nations in the past week.

Kenya’s police inspector general has ordered an investigation into the boy’s death by “stray bullet,” including a forensic analysis of all firearms held by officers at the scene.

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