Nairobi, Kenya — Police in Kenya are investigating the death of an LGBTQ rights activist whose body was found stuffed in a metal box.
The body of Edwin Chiloba was found on Wednesday on a road in Uasin Gishu County, in the west of the country.
Police say a motorcycle taxi operator reported seeing the box being dumped by a vehicle with no license plates. The rider reported the incident to police officers who were manning a nearby roadblock officers who opened the box found the decomposing body of a man, whom they described as wearing women's clothes.
The deceased was identified as Chiloba and his body was taken to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital to establish the cause of death.
Police spokesperson Resila Onyango said the motive was not yet known.
"We don't know for now why he was killed that way. Experts are handling the matter," she said.
Chiloba was a known LGBTQ activist, fashion designer and model, and had in the past been attacked and assaulted for his activism, his friend Denis Nzioka tweeted on Wednesday
In a December in Instagram post, Chiloba said his efforts were "about inclusion. And if I am going to fight what I have been marginalized for, I am going to fight for all marginalized people."
LGBTQ people living in Kenya have often decried discrimination and attacks in a country where sex between men is illegal.
Kenya is largely a conservative society and the president has in past said that gay rights are a non-issue in the east African country.
In an Instagram post, Kenyan LGBTQ rights organization The Commission mourned Chiloba, who was a fashion designer and model, as "a loved and valued member of his community who used the platforms available to him to fight for what was right!"
The group said the "loathsome act" was a major blow to the country's LGBTIQ community and "the callous way his body was discarded makes the situation all the more mortifying," adding that Chiloba's killing served as a reminder that "queer bodies continue to be under attack all over the country."
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In: Body Found Human rights Africa Kenya Murder LGBTQ+
Edwin Chiloba, a 25-year-old fashion designer and model, was found dead by the side of a road on Wednesday 25 miles (40km) outside the Rift Valley town of Eldoret in western Kenya, according to reports.
The police spokesperson Resila Onyango told Kenya’s Star newspaper the motive for the killing was still unknown. “Experts are handling the matter,” Onyango said.
Rights activists have called for speedy investigations into attacks on LGBTQ+ people who face a precarious existence in the predominantly conservative Christian nation.
Homosexuality is taboo in Kenya and across much of Africa and gay people often face discrimination or persecution. Attempts to overturn British colonial-era laws banning homosexuality in Kenya have proven unsuccessful, and gay sex remains a punishable crime with penalties that include imprisonment of up to 14 years.
“It is truly worrisome that we continue to witness escalation in violence targeting LGBTQ+ Kenyans,” the Kenya Human Rights Commission said in a statement on Friday.
“Every day, the human rights of LGBTQ+ persons are being violated with little consequence for perpetrators,” it added, urging the police “to conduct swift investigations and ensure the killers are apprehended and prosecuted”.
The Western Kenya LBQT Feminist Forum said Chilobahad used “fashion to deconstruct gender and advocate for the rights of the marginalised group”
