FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: September 7, 2026
Africans Rising strongly condemns the growing threats, harassment and attacks against African people in Kenya following recent pronouncements by President William Ruto targeting foreigners, Africans in particular operating small businesses. This is dangerous and must stop.
‘Kenya has historically stood as a hub of pan-African sanctuary, intellectual exchange, and grassroots solidarity. For decades, it has welcomed traders, and refugees from all corners of our continent. However, the dangerous rhetoric emerging from the highest office in Nairobi threatens to shatter this legacy, weaponizing national anxieties to create artificial divisions between the people of Kenya and their African brothers and sisters.
To use political platforms to scapegoat African migrants, workers, and refugees for internal economic or security challenges is a cheap and dangerous tactic. This behavior stands in direct opposition to the commitments made under the African Union Free Movement Protocol and completely undermines the progress achieved by grassroots movements pushing for a Borderless Africa.
The emerging pattern is disturbingly similar to what we have recently witnessed in South Africa and other parts of the continent, where political rhetoric blaming migrants has contributed to afrophobic violence and the mobilisation of vigilante groups against African communities. Kenya must not take this route.
Africans Rising demands:
- President William Ruto should publicly retract any statements that profile or marginalize non-Kenyan Africans and issue an unequivocal message of safety, inclusion, and pan-African unity.
- Kenyan law enforcement agencies should immediately halt any xenophobic or Afrophobic profiling, ensuring that the fundamental human rights, dignity, and physical safety of all African nationals within Kenya are fiercely guarded.
- We urge our local members, civil society organizations, and ordinary citizens to stand in solidarity and reject this politics of division and defend the dignity and safety of all Africans living in Kenya.
In a deeply troubling escalation, seven activists, Ojiro Odhiambo, Julius Kamau, Collins Otieno, Michael Nginge, Benard Mita, and Muteti Mulinge were arrested while holding a press conference condemning President Ruto’s recent xenophobic rhetoric. This is a direct assault on the fundamental rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, enshrined in Kenya’s Constitution and international human rights instruments. These activists were exercising their legitimate right to speak out against dangerous political rhetoric that scapegoats fellow Africans for Kenya’s economic challenges. We demand their immediate and unconditional release and the dropping of all charges against them.
We remind the leadership in Nairobi that Africa’s true liberation and collective prosperity depend entirely on our ability to look past colonial borders and protect one another. We will not stay silent while our people are put in harm’s way.
THE END
