A chilling story from Kenya

SARAH WANGARI’S home in Mathare, a slum in Nairobi, is hardly spacious. The corrugated tin walls are covered with sheets. In one room a tiny bed fills half the space; posters of Kenyan reggae musicians and Haile Selassie, Ethiopia’s former emperor, provide a dash of colour. The next room has been closed for three months. It belonged to Ms Wangari’s 19-year-old son, Alex, who was shot ten times at close range by police. “They said he was a gangster,” she says, gesturing at the room. “But a gangster would not live here.”