Tension had been in the air for days in Nairobi. It was evident in the concern of shopkeepers reinforcing their shutters, in schools warning pupils and parents that they would remain closed, and in those who postponed any activities until the following days.
But it was above all in the minds of young people, thousands of young people ready to demonstrate, both to commemorate those less fortunate than themselves who died in the streets exactly one year ago, often without having committed any offence and without the chance to defend themselves, and to protest against police repression.
This tension erupted and proved right those who expected a day of protests, clashes and violence, not only in the capital. The death toll is high again this year. By the evening, 12 deaths had been confirmed, but experience tells us that the toll could rise, given the number of people in hospital in serious condition (at least 83, according to reports) and those still missing. 400 injured.
Almost all of the victims were killed by excessive use of force by the police, who blocked potential access routes to the city centre from early morning, with demonstrators doing the same to prevent police vans from pursuing them after they had entered the city via alternative routes. The city was locked down and barricaded as rarely seen before, with barbed wire fences protecting the parliament building, which was set on fire on 25 June last year, and the State House, the presidential palace.
The first tear gas canisters were fired mid-morning, but the dispersal of the demonstrators, guilty only of carrying placards, chanting slogans and even playing football and volleyball in the streets, did not have the desired effect. Among those injured by the close-range firing of tear gas canisters was a young man who lost his hand, but also a policewoman who was helped by the demonstrators themselves to recover and was carried by them to an ambulance. The first young man to die was killed by the police outside a shop in the town of Matuu. He was not necessarily an activist; in fact, on days like these, many young people go out with the intention of joining the crowd that is there for a nobler cause, to loot businesses and try to break into shops. This happened especially in towns less prepared for violence, such as Nyeri, where a Naivas supermarket was looted, Nanyuki and Nyandarua. Others, however, are professional thugs, “troublemakers” hired by those who have an interest in discrediting the youth movement, the so-called Gen Z, and in portraying peaceful demonstrations as pure violence.
 
But these days it is more difficult to use these tactics without being exposed: on social media platforms, especially on X, there are eloquent images of how these “goons” have been protected and backed by the police in the past. They were also there in the streets on 25 June. But what made the news were the thousands of people who marched through the streets of the suburbs, as well as in Mombasa, where the peaceful demonstration surprised the authorities themselves, in Malindi and in the north-western regions on Lake Victoria, historically strongholds of the opposition, symbolised by Raila Odinga. But today there is no opposition. Odinga is effectively an ally of the Ruto government and was with the president in Kilifi at the funeral of Governor Gideon Mung'aro's father. From there, Ruto sent a message to young people, begging them not to destroy the nation, ‘it's the only one we have,’ he said.