Kenyan police arrested a prison warden accused of raping a female patient in a COVID-19 isolation facility he was meant to be guarding, a police report said on Friday.
It was the latest in a string of incidents highlighting substandard conditions at some government-run coronavirus treatment centre in the East African country.
According to the report, the policeman was caught by his colleagues guarding the facility at the Agricultural Training Centre (ATC) in Busia county.
The officer has been arrested particularly because female COVID-19 patients complained that he had raped the fellow patient.
A Kenyan media outlet K24tv reported that the ATC quarantine facility is usually guarded by three police officers and three prison warders around the clock.
The center admits COVID-19 patients from the Busia Government of Kenya Prison and the neighboring counties. Inmates and Covid-19 patients kept in separate wards.
On Thursday night, hell broke loose when prison warder manning the facility, identified as Police Constable Emmanuel Ng’etich, started vibing a female COVID-19 patient. His colleague, a prison warder, Police Constable Jeff Obondo, was unhappy with what Ng’etich was doing.
It’s Obondo who went ahead to tell the other colleagues at the guardroom that Ngetich was about to trespass.
Police officers and prison warders on duty jumped into action, searching for Ng’etich and the COVID-19 patient. It is then they discovered the pair in the female ward, mourns and cries were emanating from.
“The police officers rushed there and found all the female patients outside, complaining that Police Constable Ng’etich was raping the lady,” reported the news outlet.
