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Article

19 Jul 2021

Author:
Jason Burke, The Guardian

Kenya: Prominent environmental activist killed after multiple death threats

'Environment activist shot dead outside Nairobi home after death threats', 16 July 2021

A prominent environment activist has been shot dead near her home in Kenya, after receiving multiple death threats following her campaign against the development of wetlands in a national park. Joannah Stutchbury, 67, was killed at 10pm local time on Thursday as she returned to her home on the outskirts of Nairobi. Friends said she had stopped her car to clear branches blocking her driveway when she was shot several times. Neighbours found her body in the car with the engine still running and valuables still in the vehicle, suggesting the attack was not a robbery. Stutchbury had vocally opposed attempts by powerful local businessmen to build on the nearby Kiambu forest, and had received death threats in the past... The Kenyan president, Uhuru Kenyatta, condemned the killing... Stutchbury’s killing is only one of a number of violent deaths of conservationists in recent years. In 2018, Esmond Bradley Martin, a Kenya-based American conservationist whose investigations of the elephant ivory and rhino horn trades were considered critical in efforts to protect the threatened species, was stabbed to death in his Nairobi home. His murder remains unresolved... Amnesty International’s Kenya branch condemned Stutchbury’s killing and called for a swift investigation...

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