Kenya police teargas and arrest hundreds on second anniversary of 2024 protest killings
Families of the 60-plus victims who died when security forces fired on Parliament crowds in June 2024 were met with razor wire, roadblocks and teargas as they marched to demand accountability and full reparations
Summary
Kenyan police fired teargas and made mass arrests in Nairobi on June 25, the second anniversary of the day security forces shot and killed more than 60 people outside Parliament during the 2024 Gen Z finance-bill protests. Officers sealed Parliament with razor wire and established roadblocks across the city center as victims' families, civil society organizations and protest veterans attempted to lay flowers at Parliament and march to demand accountability. President Ruto has allocated Sh2bn ($15.5m) from public funds for victims, calling it a goodwill measure, not an admission of government wrongdoing. Civil society groups reject that framing, saying Kenya's KNCHR reparations framework still withholds the names of verified victims and bars certain categories of those harmed.
The split
The government narrative, echoed in state broadcaster KBC, frames the Sh2bn fund as a generous, unprecedented reparation gesture and the marchers as elements seeking to destabilise a functioning compensation process. Independent Kenyan press, including Daily Nation and The Standard, reported the protests sympathetically, quoting families who said money without accountability is inadequate. International coverage, led by Al Jazeera and the AP, contextualised the crackdown as a repeat of the pattern that triggered the 2024 protests. Diaspora social media used the day to circulate images from two years ago alongside footage from today, sharpening the contrast.
By the numbers
- 60+, people killed when security forces fired on Parliament crowds in June 2024
- 1,000+, victims verified by the KNCHR reparations framework announced June 15, 2026
- Sh2bn ($15.5m), Ruto's allocated compensation fund
- Hundreds, estimated number arrested by police on June 25
- 2, anniversary of the 2024 protests
Why it matters
The June 25, 2024 crackdown that killed protesters at the gates of Parliament set a political generation against Ruto's government and produced the deepest civil-society mobilisation Kenya has seen in decades. The second-anniversary crackdown, mirroring the original, signals that the government has not fundamentally changed its security posture despite the reparations framework. Unresolved accountability for 2024 keeps the political wound open and sustains the social energy that could re-emerge as a political force in the run-up to the 2027 election cycle.
What to watch
- Whether the KNCHR publishes the names of verified victims, a key demand from families
- Police accountability proceedings, if any, for officers involved in the 2024 killings
- Whether Ruto's Sh2bn fund disbursement process begins before or after the 2027 election campaign
- Wider Gen Z political mobilisation indicators ahead of voter registration deadlines