Kenyan LGBTQ Activist Edwin Chiloba found dead

The body of a prominent LGBTQ rights campaigner was discovered by Kenyan police inside a metal box in the west of the country, local media reported on Friday.
After seeing a box being dumped by the roadside from a vehicle with a concealed number plate, motorbike taxi riders alerted police, The Standard and The Daily Nation newspapers reported, quoting police sources.
The Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) said that activist Edwin Chiloba’s remains were found on Tuesday near Eldoret town in Uasin Gishu county, where he ran his fashion business.
“Unknown assailants brutally killed him and dumped his body in the area,” said the Kenya Human Rights Commission on Twitter.
It is worrisome that we continue to witness escalation in violence targeting LGBTQ+ Kenyans.
Although it remains a taboo subject for many, research suggests acceptance of homosexuality is gradually increasing in Kenya. In recent years, the country’s film board has banned two films for their portrayals of gay lives.
“We will comment at a later time,” said Kenya National Police Service spokesperson Resila Onyango. Commander Ayub Gitonga Ali of Uasin Gishu County declined to comment.
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The community is feeling a range of emotions and it is difficult to put them into words. “Edwin Chiloba was a fighter, fighting relentlessly to change the hearts and minds of society when it came to LGBTQ+ lives,” GALCK, a Kenyan gay rights group, said on Twitter.
Under a British colonial-era law, gay sex in Kenya is punishable by imprisonment for 14 years. Discrimination is common, though it’s rarely enforced.