Volunteer nurses from around the country provided trauma first aid to victims of police brutality in Kisumu.

When protests against the election rerun in Kenya turned violent, Volunteer nurses from around the country provided trauma first aid to victims of police brutality in Kisumu.

Photo journalist Jennifer Huxta was there to witness a day of healing and loss.KISUMU, Kenya – When Kenya held an election on October 26, no one in Kisumu voted. An earlier vote on August 8, which ended with President Uhuru Kenyatta winning re-election, had been nullified by the Supreme Court because of suspected fraud.

The October do-over was supposed to offer Kenyans another chance at a free and fair election. But opposition candidate Raila Odinga said the new vote would be invalid, in part because there had been no changes made to the overseeing body, the Independent Electoral Boundaries Commission (IEBC), since the August election.

Throughout the country, people held anti-IEBC protests in the weeks leading up to the re-election. Kisumu, the opposition heartland, was one of four counties boycotting the vote. On October 25, the day before the election, only four of 400 presiding officers of the IEBC arrived for work; the rest were afraid of being attacked as they had been during a training exercise before the August vote.

Driving from the town center to the neighborhood of Kondele at the end of the day on October 25, reporters passed through five roadblocks, negotiating with young men who crowded around the car yelling, “No Elections!” and “Uhuru Must Go!” At the roundabout, 20 anti-riot police officers armed with teargas launchers and rifles faced off with a group of protesters who were mostly unarmed. A man in a balaclava threw rocks at the police with a slingshot. At first, the police fired teargas and blanks to disperse the crowd. Then they started firing live rounds above and into the crowd.