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Doctor: Baby Girl 'Tear Gassed, Beaten by Kenyan Police' Dies


FILE - Lenzer, mother of six month-old Samantha Pendo, stands next to her bed as the girl remains in critical condition in the Intensive Care Unit of Aga Khan Hospital in Kisumu, Kenya, Aug. 14, 2017.
FILE - Lenzer, mother of six month-old Samantha Pendo, stands next to her bed as the girl remains in critical condition in the Intensive Care Unit of Aga Khan Hospital in Kisumu, Kenya, Aug. 14, 2017.

A six-month-old girl has died in Kenya, her doctor told Reuters on Tuesday, after her parents said she was tear gassed and clubbed by police in a security crackdown after last week's disputed election.

Samantha Pendo was asleep in her mother's arms when police forced their way into their home and beat her and her parents as they searched for protesters, her parents said.

"She remained in coma throughout. She never improved one bit," said Dr. Sam Oula at the Aga Khan Hospital in the western city of Kisumu.

The baby and her parents were beaten when police were sweeping their neighborhood for opposition protesters on Saturday, residents told Reuters journalists who investigated the incident.

Kisumu is a stronghold of opposition leader Raila Odinga, who is contesting results from last Tuesday's presidential election. An official tally said President Uhuru Kenyatta won re-election by 1.4 million votes.

Odinga's accusations of rigging have led to protests in Kisumu and in Nairobi slums. Residents there say police have responded with lethal force and many residents were killed in their homes.

Among the dead are an 8-year-old girl, hit by a stray bullet as she played on her balcony, and an 18-year-old student whose mother said was pulled from under the bed and beaten so badly he died the next day.

Police have promised to investigate all incidents but human rights groups say they rarely hold officers to account for extrajudicial killings.

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    Reuters

    Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

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