Jubilee Secretary General Jeremiah Kioni shed tears as he censured the government over recent deaths of anti-government protesters.
Speaking in an interview on YouTube seen by the Star, Kioni said the shooting to death of innocent protesters should never have happened.
“What hurts me, and it is difficult to say..when we saw our young people in the streets asking for a right to be educated and police came out and started shooting them,” Kioni said as he broke down tears.
He said many families are still unable to account for their children and are afraid to speak out.
“How many other families cannot account for their children, and they are now very scared of even speaking out because there is a killer squad in this country,” he said.
The government on Thursday acknowledged the fatalities and disappearances linked to anti-government protests that have swept the country in recent months.
Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki told a committee of the National Assembly Committee that 42 people were killed, 132 missing, and 1,208 others arrested during the protests.
However, human rights organisations in their recent report claim that 61 people were killed during the protests.
The report also revealed that 67 cases of enforced disappearances have been lodged this year, with 40 cases resolved so far, leaving 27 still unresolved.
Protests erupted across Kenya in June and July over tax increases in the Finance Bill 2024.
President William Ruto’s administration faced intense scrutiny for how it handled the protests, which also caused widespread property damage.
Protests in the major towns of Nairobi, Kisumu, and Mombasa were some of the most intense, with citizens taking to the streets to demand economic reforms, which later evolved into protests calling for Ruto's resignation.
In his remarks during the show, Kioni alleged the existence of a killer squad in the country.
“The killer squad is not under the police command. I bet that is why Koome resigned because there were people not under his command and he was being held responsible for the mess,” he claimed.
Former police boss Japhet Koome resigned on July 12, following weeks of violent protests.
