{"id":121534,"date":"2021-05-06T10:04:39","date_gmt":"2021-05-06T02:04:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=121534"},"modified":"2021-05-06T10:04:42","modified_gmt":"2021-05-06T02:04:42","slug":"covid-19-kenya-probes-curfew-police-after-sick-baby-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=121534","title":{"rendered":"Covid-19: Kenya probes curfew police after ‘sick baby dies’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Police have put up roadblocks nationwide to enforce a curfew introduced to reduce coronavirus infections
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NAIROBI,\u00a0May 6\u00a0(NNN-AGENCIES)\u00a0—<\/strong>Kenya’s police watchdog has begun an investigation into reports that a baby died after officers on curfew duty refused to let a taxi go to hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The four-month-old had developed breathing difficulties on Saturday and was rushed to a local hospital, the grandfather told the Nation newspaper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Medics said the child needed to go to a referral hospital 25km away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But officers at a roadblock allegedly refused to let them pass because of a Covid curfew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kenya has imposed a 22:00-04:00 curfew to curb a surge in coronavirus infections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If it were not for that roadblock, the life of my granddaughter could have been saved,” said the baby’s grandfather, speaking in Swahili, in a video posted on the Nation’s Facebook page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The authorities have been widely criticised but they insist that strict enforcement of the curfew is necessary to deal with the rise in infection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kenya has confirmed more than 161,000 cases of coronavirus and just over 2,700 deaths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The taxi with the sick child left Gucha hospital arriving at the roadblock in the western town of Keroka just after 22:00 on Saturday, according to The Nation, which spoke to the grandfather and the taxi driver he hired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The family was heading for Kisii Teaching and Referral Hospital (KTRH).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We were held for more than 40 minutes at the roadblock despite having a referral letter from Gucha hospital. Police insisted that we had defied the guidelines issued by the president,” the grandfather is quoted as saying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The taxi driver looked for an alternative route to get the 16-year-old mother, her baby and her father to KTRH when negotiations failed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I tried to talk to them but my pleas felt on deaf ears,” Aron Okindo told the paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An officer told the Nation that the vehicle was only at the roadblock for 15 minutes because of a build-up of traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nonetheless, the grandfather says by the time they reached KTRH by another route it was an hour later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Doctors told us that the child had already died,” the grandfather said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Independent Policing Oversight Authority, the agency in charge of investigating police misconduct in Kenya, said it was investigating. — NNN-AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Police have put up roadblocks nationwide to enforce a curfew introduced to reduce coronavirus infections NAIROBI,\u00a0May 6\u00a0(NNN-AGENCIES)\u00a0—Kenya’s police watchdog has begun an investigation into reports that a baby died after officers on curfew duty refused to let a taxi go to hospital. The four-month-old had developed breathing difficulties on Saturday and was rushed to a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":121536,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[213],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121534"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=121534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/121536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=121534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=121534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=121534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}