Protesters to march again today

NAIROBI, June 26 (AFP): Kenyan protest organisers called Wednesday for fresh peaceful marches against controversial tax hikes, as the death toll from nationwide demonstrations climbed to 13, an official from the leading doctors' association told AFP.

The mainly youth-led rallies began mostly peacefully last week, with thousands of people marching across the country against the tax increases, but tensions sharply escalated Tuesday, as police opened fire on demonstrators who stormed parliament.

The unprecedented scenes left parts of parliament ablaze and gutted and scores of people wounded, shocking Kenyans and prompting President William Ruto's government to deploy the military.

On Tuesday afternoon, parliament passed the contentious bill containing the tax hikes, which must be signed by Ruto to become law.

But demonstrators vowed to hit the streets again Thursday as they called for the bill to be scrapped.

"Tomorrow we march peacefully again as we wear white, for all our fallen people," protest organiser Hanifa Adan said on X. "You cannot kill all of us."

Demonstrators shared "Tupatane Thursday" ("we meet Thursday" in Swahili), alongside the hashtag #Rejectfinancebill2024 on social media. "The government does not care about us because they shot us with live bullets," Steve, 40, who was at the parliament Tuesday, told AFP.

Ruto "victimised innocent people", he said, adding he would march on Thursday: "I expect more violence and chaos." Simon Kigondu, president of the Kenya Medical Association, told AFP: "So far, we have at least 13 people killed, but this is not the final number."

He added that he had never before seen "such level of violence against unarmed people." An official at Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi said Wednesday that medics were treating "160 people... some of them with soft tissue injuries, some of them with bullet wounds".

In posts online, protest organisers shared fundraising efforts to support those hurt in the demonstrations. Ruto warned late Tuesday that his government would take a tough line against "violence and anarchy", likening some of the demonstrators to "criminals".