A female commuter in Nairobi was reportedly assaulted in a matatu terminus for asking a driver to wear a mask. The vehicle's tout allegedly hit the passenger who was boarding the PSV with the door and bashed her.
The incident, which occurred on Wednesday, March 24 was reported by Ma3Route on their Twitter page alerting the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) to take action.
"@NTSA, @MOH #ma3route. The conductor of this matatu wants to beat a woman because she asked the driver to wear a mask. They've hit her with the door and told her they're ferrying passengers without masks. The lady was only asking for social distancing cause of Corona," read the Twitter post.
The incident has drawn reactions with some questioning what the other passengers did in intervention.
"What did the rest of you guys on the matatu do about this situation? At that moment, did anyone of you tell off the crew? Evil prevails when good people take no action," complained Aibnatu.
The incident caused an uproar on social media with Kenyans demanding justice from the relevant authorities. The reported vehicle belonging to 2KW Sacco which bears plate number KBK 809C was said to be flouting the MOH rules.
Earlier in the year, another incident had been reported where two touts roughed up two passengers and threw their luggage out of the vehicle for calling them out on carrying excess passengers.
The Ministry of Health through Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe issued regulations in regards to curbing the spread of Covid19 with the wearing of masks being one of them.
The public service vehicles were given directives to redo the sitting arrangements and not to ferry passengers without masks.
The carrying capacity was also reduced to allow for social distancing. A 33-seater bus is only allowed to carry a maximum of 17 passengers, a 26-seater is limited to 15 passengers while a 14 seater matatu can only carry 8 passengers.
Laxity in adherence to the directives has been noted with some of the vehicles carrying excess passengers, lowering their guard in allowing people without masks to board and neglect to sanitize.
CS Kagwe announced that the country is on the third wave of the covid-19 pandemic calling for extra caution. As of yesterday, 1,127 people had tested positive for Covid-19, out of a sample size of 5,393 tested with the positivity rate rising to 22.1 percent. The total number of confirmed positive Covid-19 cases stands at 123,167.
