The Murder of Dandora Human Rights activist Caroline Mwatha continues to provoke many questions that need answers and even though most of the answers are yet to be arrived at, the police seemingly still have a lot of work to do to help clear the air on Caroline’s death, a death that has not only shocked her family but has also shocked the entire nation.
Many people including Caroline’s family believe that she was killed due to the nature of her work as she was documenting police executions in Dandora and it’s environs.
Caroline’s father Stanslaus Mbai said that the police’s abortion narrative was “hollow, nondescript and not true”.
“Saying that Caro died from an abortion operation gone wrong is hogwash. We’ve been with her and we know that she was not pregnant,” Mbai said.
Husband Joshua Ochieng’ expressed dismay at the allegations, saying the abortion theory could not hold.
“If she was supposedly aborting for fear of ruining her marriage, why would she wait to do that after five months?” he asked. “Why didn’t she do it in the first month or two or even less?”
Caroline’s family also questioned the credibility of records at City mortuary saying that they had visited the morgue visited and conducted a thorough search from February 8 but did not find the body. They also visited other mortuaries.
“We were here on February 8 and 9 but did not find her. We asked about Caroline. If there was a body by the name Caroline, we could have been shown so we identify her,” the father of four said.
Human rights activists, led by Haki Africa executive director Hussein Khalid and Dandora Community Justice Centre coordinator Wilfred Olal, took issue with “the police providing information to the media regarding the discovery of the body, even before informing the family.”
“How did they know that the name assigned to the discovered body was wrong? How is that they found it right to tip the media of the discovery but not informing the family who had reported a missing person?” Olal asked.