Nairobi News

Police in Embakasi are hunting down an alleged quack who procured an abortion leading to the death of a woman.

The woman’s body was found lying on her bed within Embakasi in Nairobi County by locals who later alerted the police on what was happening.

According to police records, the woman was found lifeless and her neighbors alerted the officers of what had transpired.

“The body was then moved to the City mortuary where it is lying awaiting an autopsy,” a police report read in part.

Legal ambiguity in Kenya has been seen as a reason many women prefer backstreet clinics where an abortion is procured.

The penal code, which has its origins in the colonial era, outlaws abortion, criminalising the woman, the person who carries out the abortion, and the person who supplies the material required.

However, the 2010 constitution, combined with a wider body of law, does allow abortion when “the life or health of the mother is in danger” or when the pregnancy has resulted from rape or incest.

According to the global human rights organisation, Center for Reproductive Rights, around seven women and girls die every day in Kenya because of unsafe abortions. Thousands more are hospitalised.

Meanwhile, police have recorded a statement from a woman who reported that she found her eight-year-old daughter lying dead inside her bedroom in Ruai, Nairobi County.

In her statement, the woman said that on Saturday, April 13, she was doing house chores when she realised that the minor was still sleeping.

She then went to her bedroom only to find her dead. She said that she called for help before the body of the child was picked up and taken to the morgue.

Police are waiting for the autopsy report so they can kick off investigations into the death of the minor who is said to have been in good health.