Justice First, Not Blood Money: Families of Gen Z Protest Victims Reject State Compensation

 By Steve El Sabai 

Families of young Kenyans killed during the 2024 Gen Z protests have delivered a defiant message to the state: justice cannot be bought. In a joint statement issued Tuesday, the bereaved families rejected government plans to compensate victims’ kin, insisting that no amount of money could erase the pain of lives cut short by state violence.

The government, through a taskforce chaired by Prof. Makau Mutua, recently unveiled a compensation framework for victims and their families. While acknowledging the gesture, the families said their definition of justice goes far deeper than payouts.

“Compensation alone, without truth, acknowledgment, accountability, and reform, is nothing more than blood money,” the statement read. “No family will accept their loved one’s life being reduced to a cheque.”

The families laid out a five-point framework they believe must be honored before any true healing can begin. First, the state must openly admit that those killed were not criminals or terrorists, but patriotic young Kenyans who stood for justice, freedom, and a better future. Second, the government must issue a sincere and unequivocal apology that recognizes the pain caused and the blood spilled. Third, there must be transparent investigations, arrests, and prosecutions of all police officers and commanders involved in the killings. Fourth, compensation should only be seen as solidarity with bereaved families coping with hardship, never as a substitute for accountability. Finally, the families demanded deep and irreversible police reforms to ensure that such tragedies never happen again.

Their statement underscored that those who died during the protests were not enemies of Kenya, but its very conscience. “They were our children, our future. To diminish their sacrifice by reducing it to a financial settlement without justice would betray their memory,” they stressed.

In a poignant conclusion, the families reminded the nation that true healing lies in justice, not money. “Money cannot heal a mother’s broken heart, cannot bring back a father’s son, cannot silence a child’s cry for their parent. Only justice can bring dignity to the dead and peace to the nation.”