By Elodie Toto

Following protests at a public meeting about a proposed nuclear power plant in Kenya, one person was shot and several residents were arrested.

The Kenyan government plans to build a 2,000-megawatt nuclear power plant near Bondo, a town in Siaya County near Lake Victoria. Officials, including representatives from the Nuclear Power and Energy Agency (NuPEA), were holding a public consultation meeting in the town on July 24 when the protests started.

Dickens Ochieng, a lawyer and community member who attended the meeting, told Mongabay by phone that the landowners invited to the meeting started shouting “Wadagi,” which means “we don’t want the project” in Luo language. “And then one of the police officers who was guarding the government agencies used his firearm and as a result one person was shot on the leg and the meeting turned chaotic instantly,” he said.

According to Ochieng, residents of Bondo began throwing stones at police officers, who responded with tear gas. In the days that followed, 17 people were arrested and detained. An official document reviewed by Mongabay shows that the arrested people are now under investigation for assault as well as Kenya’s Prevention of Terrorism Act.

Ochieng, who has taken on their legal defense, said there “is an intense government crackdown on people who are opposed to the project.”

“As a lawyer, I just keep on telling the community that they have to stand firm, because terrorism charges have nowhere to do with the incident that happened,” he said. “They are meant to intimidate and to silence you, not to convict anyone.”

So far, 15 of the 17 suspects have been released after community members raised money through crowdfunding to pay their bail, which costs between 15,000-180,000 Kenyan shillings ($116-1,391), Ochieng said.

“In the community, most people are fishermen, small-scale traders and they do small businesses,” he said. “According to the statistics, most of them live below $1 per day. The defenders coalition was able to pay the lower bail amounts, but for the others, it’s complicated.”

Mongabay contacted both the Bondo police commander and NuPEA for comment. Neither had responded by the time of publication.

In May, communities held demonstrations against the proposed nuclear plant, while a petition calling for the project to be halted has continued to circulate online.

The Strategic Environmental Assessment report for Kenya’s nuclear power program published in 2023 noted that the Lake Victoria region should be avoided since it is vulnerable to volcanic disturbances, “which may impair the safety” of a nuclear power plant.

Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest freshwater lake, is shared by Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, and millions of people across the three countries depend on it for their livelihoods, food security and drinking water.

Banner image: Fishing boats in Luanda Kotieno, in the Bondo area of Siaya County, where the Kenyan government is planning to build a nuclear power plant. Image by Victor Ochieng via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).