Just as she was about to enter the church, Celestine Ogutu, the sister of the late John Ogutu who was killed in Dar-es-Salaam, noticed she had ten missed calls.

The number carried the +255 country code, a clear indication that it was a call from Tanzania, where her brother had been teaching for the last eight years. She noted that her failure to reach her brother on the previous day, October 29, now felt like a premonition.

“When I called back, the voice on the other end was faint. It was my maternal cousin who had helped my brother secure a teaching job in Tanzania,” recalled Ms. Ogutu.

“She told me that my brother was among many people who were killed by the Tanzanian soldiers who were quelling protests,” she added.

Shot While Buying Food

The late Kenyan teacher, a native of Kademba A village in Siaya sub-county, was reportedly shot in the back at Gaba Center within Dar-es-Salaam.

He had gone out to buy food at around dusk. John Ogutu was 33 years old and had been teaching at Sky School in Dar-es-Salaam for the last eight years.

All the family now requests is for the government to help in repatriating his body back to Kenya for interment.

“I have been communicating with the teachers and the school administration where he was teaching. They have visited the Mwananyamala mortuary where the bodies were reportedly taken, but they found none.

“According to the teachers who went to look for the body, they only found two bodies: one belonging to an old man and a child,” said the distraught sister.

There are currently unconfirmed but worrying allegations that the bodies of the protesters have been disposed of in a mass grave, while others have allegedly been thrown into water bodies, either in the Indian Ocean or local rivers.