COVID-19: mad rush for food aid in Kenya creates stampede

There was a brief stampede in Kenya’s capital Friday after thousands of people surged for food aid.

Witnesses said the incident in the impoverished Kibera vicinity led police to fire tear gas and injured several people.

Kibera residents forced their way through a gate for their chance at supplies to keep their families fed for another day during the lockdown.

Its just food we have come for, because we are dying of hunger.

Injured people were carried to safety and placed on the ground to recover.

“The people who have been injured here are so many, we cannot even count them. Women as well as children have been injured. There was a woman with twins, she has been injured and even now she is looking for her twins. Many people have been injured, but its just food we have come for, because we are dying of hunger”, said Kibera resident, Evelyn Kemunto.

They were desperate for help as restrictions over covid-19 make it more difficult to go out and make a living.

More than 500,000 people live in Kibera and many live on less than a few dollars a day.

The population made mostly of informal workers, with little or no savings at all, worry about the next meal as no one knows for sure when the measures to curtail spread of the coronavirus will end.

AP