Several hundred
Kenyan AIDS activists took to the streets of Nairobi on
Thursday to protest at the killing of an HIV-infected boy,
whom they say was hacked to death with a garden fork
by his uncle because of his status. A week after
15-year-old Isaiah Gakuyo was killed in Nyeri in
central Kenya, police were still looking for his uncle, who
was the orphaned boy's guardian.
About 300 people
demonstrated Thursday, saying the killing highlighted
the stigma faced by those living with HIV in Kenya.
"The boy was
facing violence on a daily basis," said Inviolata
Mwali Mmbwavi, one of the march organizers who runs a group
working with Kenyan AIDS victims. "We don't want this
to happen again."
Gakuyo was often
beaten and denied food at home, added Asunta Wagura,
executive director of the Kenya Network of Women With AIDS.
"We supported him as he was an unwelcome dependent in
the family," Wagura said, adding that the organization
had been trying to find him another home.
HIV prevalence in
the east African country has declined to 7% in 2003
from about 10% in the late 1990s.
Thousands of
Kenyans living with the virus cannot access even the
cheapest antiretroviral drugs, which are too expensive in
private hospitals and not available in public ones.
(Reuters)