Six-month old baby Samantha Pendo was a victim of police gruesome brutality during a few days of violence that followed after IEBC declared Uhuru Kenyatta as winner of 2017 presidential election.
Samantha Pendo suffered severe head injuries after being clubbed by police who invaded their home during security crackdown in Nyalenda slum in Kisumu city.
Baby Pendo succumbed to her injuries on Wednesday while receiving treatment at Aga Khan Hospital Intensive Care Unit. She had been in a coma for two days before she passed on.
An autopsy carried out on Samantha’s body on Thursday by Aga Khan Hospital Medical superintendent Dr. Dickson Mchana, Dr Sam Oula, pathologist Dr Simon Osongo and a team from the Independent Policing Oversight Authority, revealed that baby Samantha died of head fractures occasioned by a head injury.
While addressing journalists at Aga Khan Hospital, Dr. Mchana, a consultant government pathologist in Western Kenya, said that the injuries inflicted on baby Samantha’s head were very severe.
“Samantha died of severe head injury. Actually it was bad. A gaping fracture on the head is what kept the baby alive because when the skull opens up, it releases pressure. One can therefore survive. Otherwise, if the head injury had not resulted into the cracking of the skull, she would have died much earlier,” Dr. Mchana explained to journalists.
