Two years after Kenya's landmark Gen Z uprising shook the country, families of those killed returned to parliament in Nairobi on Thursday to demand justice, only to be met by barbed wire, tear gas, and mass arrests. Police detained 355 people across the country, sealed off major roads into the capital, and barricaded parliament — preventing mourners from laying wreaths at the site where dozens were shot dead in June 2024. In the coastal city of Mombasa, hundreds of young demonstrators marched through the streets dressed in black and draped in Kenyan flags, while scattered clashes broke out in parts of Nairobi, with protesters throwing stones and police responding with tear gas and mounted officers.
The original protests — driven by young Kenyans frustrated with rising taxes, economic hardship, and corruption — culminated on June 25, 2024, when tens of thousands stormed parliament, forcing the withdrawal of a controversial finance bill. The security response was brutal: at least 60 people were killed outside parliament alone that day, and according to rights group Civicus Monitor, more than 82 people were forcibly disappeared over the course of the demonstrations. A police watchdog has put the total death toll across two years of related unrest at 127. A BBC investigation later found that police had deliberately targeted protesters, and reports of abductions allegedly carried out by security forces deepened concerns about extrajudicial killings.
This year's demonstrations were shaped in part by anger over the government's compensation programme. President William Ruto announced a fund of nearly $15 million last week to pay reparations to roughly 2,000 victims of protest-related abuses between 2017 and 2025. While Ruto described the move as a state acknowledgment that harm had occurred, human rights organisations rejected it as inadequate, opaque, and exclusionary. Families outside parliament echoed that criticism. "Only two out of 10 families whose children were shot that day near parliament have been compensated," said Gillian Munyao, whose son Rex Masai was killed. "Arrest the killer cops — that's my message to the government."
Opposition leaders including former Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka and former Justice Minister Martha Karua joined the families in their march, lending political weight to the day's events. Ruto's former deputy Rigathi Gachagua, now a bitter rival, took a different tack, urging young Kenyans to stay home rather than face what he called "organised terror" by the state. The heavy security deployment — AFP journalists reported long lines of police wagons, horse patrols, and large numbers of plainclothes officers — kept turnout in Nairobi lower than in previous years, with many residents saying fear kept them away.
June 25 has now become an annual marker of discontent in Kenya, and its significance extends beyond the protest calendar. Political analysts note that Ruto faces deep unpopularity, particularly among the Gen Z generation that helped define the 2024 uprising, as his promises of economic transformation have failed to materialise for many citizens. With general elections scheduled for August 2027, the politics of protest, accountability, and state violence look set to remain central to Kenya's public life.