My name is Susan Nduku, and on the morning of July 7 2025, I woke with a heaviness in my heart. Deep inside, I felt that something terrible was about to happen.
I never imagined that by the end of that day, I would lose my son, Julius Muli, my firstborn, the child we all lovingly called Julie.
Julie was 30 years old. He survived on casual jobs around Kangari town in Murang’a, working hard every day just to make ends meet. Out of the little he earned, sometimes only Sh300 a day, he would still give me Sh100 to help at home. He carried the burden of this family on his shoulders and helped raise his younger siblings with love and responsibility.
He was the child closest to my heart. Whenever I was in pain, he felt it too. Even now, I still cannot accept that they killed him.
The last time I spoke to Julie was on Sunday, July 6. He was worried about his younger brother drinking too much and said he wanted to discipline him. I did not know those would be the last words I would ever hear from my son.
The next day, on Saba Saba, around midday, an unbearable anxiety came over me. I suddenly felt an urgent need to speak to him.
I called him again and again, but he did not answer. Fear gripped me. I sent his younger sister to search for him. Protests had already begun in our town the previous day, and I could not shake the feeling that something was wrong.
As we searched the streets, gunshots rang out. A friend pulled me into her house to calm me down because I was shaking with fear. Four of my children were out in the protests that day, but it was Julie I could not stop thinking about. The worry made me physically sick. I suffer from high blood pressure, and my body could not handle the fear.
As my friend prepared tea for me, my phone rang.
It was a boda boda rider.
He told me Julie had been shot by a police officer. He tried to comfort me by saying my son was still alive, lying on the ground as people rushed him to the hospital.
But a mother knows.
At that moment, something inside me broke. I knew my son was gone. I felt it deep in the pit of my stomach.
They had shot him in the hand and in the chest.
As the ambulance sped toward Murang’a Level Five Hospital, it passed right by where I stood on the roadside. I felt my legs weaken beneath me.
Julie’s younger brother jumped onto a boda boda with friends and followed the ambulance to the hospital. When they arrived, my worst fear was confirmed.
My son had died on the spot.
They did me so wrong when they killed him.
They did not just kill my son, they killed my heartbeat.
And even after his death, the suffering did not end. The post-mortem kept being postponed for two painful weeks. Every delay felt like torture, as though our grief meant nothing. I finally reached a point where I told them I would bury my son without the post-mortem if they continued delaying us.
That was the last time I heard from IPOA. The officers present promised they would contact me, but they never did.
I buried my son in Matuu, Machakos County, carrying a pain no mother should ever have to carry.
Then, barely a month later, I was told that a police officer had been boasting in a bar about how they killed my son.
To this day, no action has been taken.
All I want is justice for Julie.
I want those responsible held accountable, because if no one answers for my son’s death, then this will keep happening to other families. No mother should have to bury her child this way.
