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Gen Zers in Kenya are paying for their protests in blood as police violence goes unchecked [1]

['Guest Contributor']

Date: 2025-07-24

In Nairobi’s crowded Kangemi settlement, a threadbare Kenyan flag lies across the still-bleeding body of a teenager killed during the July 7 Saba Saba marches, as tear gas drifts through the dusty air and police blast water cannons down the narrow alley. Saba Saba, Swahili for “seven seven,” marks the July 7, 1990, demonstrations that forced Kenya’s path to multi-party democracy, and every anniversary since has become a litmus test of the state’s tolerance for dissent.

This year’s test was the deadliest yet. That scene played out across at least 17 counties in Kenya, leaving 31 people dead and more than 100 wounded, according to the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR). This was the most violent day of protest since unrest first erupted in the country with the introduction of a controversial finance bill in June 2024. With every new death added to the toll, the anger that first pushed Kenya's young people onto the streets is deepening.

The tax revolt that lit the fuse

The spark was the Finance Bill 2024, a sweeping package of new levies that many young Kenyans branded “taxation without jobs.” As Members of Parliament (MPs) pushed the bill through its final vote on June 25, 2024, citizens erupted unlike anything the capital had seen since the 1990s. Thousands of protesters who had been mobilizing for days on social media, especially on X, converged at Nairobi's Parliament Building, breached police cordons and, in a brief, chaotic burst, occupied the debating chamber. Officers opened fire with live rounds, and by nightfall, at least nineteen people lay dead.

Rather than dampen the anger, the crackdown sent the movement surging across the country, and it was eventually dubbed the “Gen Z Protests.” Over the next five weeks, demonstrations flared in more than twenty counties, and rights groups tallied at least 60 deaths, hundreds of bullet wounds, and more than 600 arrests linked to the anti-tax marches.

A toll that keeps climbing

Over the past thirteen months, the death count during the protests has risen in three clear surges. The first came in the weeks after the Finance Bill passed in June 2024, when police used live rounds to clear the streets. Amnesty International later confirmed that 60 people were killed and hundreds injured during that first wave.

The second surge came on June 25, 2025, exactly one year after protesters first stormed Parliament. Thousands of mainly young Kenyans filled Nairobi, Kisumu, and Mombasa, chanting the names of those killed the year before. Once again, the police answered with tear-gas, water cannons, and live ammunition. By nightfall, 16 deaths were recorded and more than 400 were injured, most with gunshot wounds.

Barely a fortnight later, during the Saba Saba marches, Kenya recorded its bloodiest moment yet. In its latest statement, the national human-rights body reported 38 people killed, more than 130 injured, and 532 arrests across seventeen counties. Among the dead were two children, including a 12-year-old girl struck by a stray bullet while watching television at home in Kiambu. Taken together, these three spikes push the protest death toll well past 100, including prominent blogger Albert Ojwang, who died in police custody in June. Nearly all the victims were under 30 years old.

What Gen Z is fighting for

“We can't feed our families, so we have to be on the street to stop the increasing prices, to stop the (police) abductions, and to stand up for our country,” said Festus Muiruri, a 22-year-old protester, to Reuters, in Nairobi. His frustration echoes across the social media channels which were used to mobilize thousands of Gen Z Kenyans for the Saba Saba marches and a string of street protests over the past year.

The anger driving these rallies runs deeper than a single day of bloodshed. The World Bank projected Kenya’s overall unemployment would rise to about 5.7 percent in 2024 as hiring freezes took hold. The picture is far worse for young adults. According to the Federation of Kenya Employers, youths aged 15–34, who make up 35 percent of the population, face an unemployment rate of about 67 percent, and more than one million of them enter the labour market every year, many without vocational skills.

Protesters say that anger over economic pain now blends with fear of state brutality.

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State narratives versus rights watchdogs

Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen has described the protests as “a coup attempt” and urged officers to “shoot on sight” anyone who storms public buildings. President Ruto echoed this language days later when he told police to “shoot them in the leg.” Police spokespeople insist only “reasonable force” is used and say internal probes are underway, yet morgue records reviewed by reporters list gunshot deaths as road accidents or “mob justice,” raising suspicions of systematic cover-ups.

Parliament’s security committee chair, Nelson Koech, went further and said that Ruto’s order to aim for the leg was too soft and urged a “shoot to kill” mandate, branding protesters “criminals” who deserve maximum force. For bereaved families, the message is clear: when young Kenyans raise basic demands about jobs and taxes, the state responds with louder gunfire.

Rights groups echo that alarm. In a joint statement after Saba Saba, Amnesty Kenya, the KNCHR, and other watchdogs called the Saba Saba new fatalities “extrajudicial killings” and have demanded an independent inquiry, noting officers without nametags fired live rounds while arm-in-arm with unidentified plain-clothes men.

What's next?

For many young Kenyans still organizing vigils for the dead, the struggle has shifted from street clashes to the ballot and to the meme-factory of the internet. Over the past week, the hashtag #WanTam, a Sheng play on “one term,” warning President Ruto he will serve only a single election term, has topped national trends and even slipped into global lists, turning protest grief into coded humor and rallying fresh supporters online.

Ruto insists the marches hide a coup plot, but opposition leaders led by former deputy president turned critic Rigathi Gachagua dismiss the claim. “Please, relax,” Gachagua told reporters. “Finish your term. No one is trying to remove you unconstitutionally; there is no leader plotting a coup, and none has the capacity.”

Even as rights groups press for an independent inquiry, families plead for answers and Gen Z organizers map out their next move to keep the pressure up, the state still meets their demands with batons, tear gas, and, increasingly, live bullets. Whether these next steps bring real reform or simply lengthen the roll call of the dead will depend on how seriously officials heed both the new graves spreading across the countryside and the hashtags burning on their screens.

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[1] Url: https://globalvoices.org/2025/07/24/from-finance-bill-to-saba-saba-how-kenyas-gen-z-keeps-paying-the-price-in-blood/

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