Joseph Oloo Abanja and Lensa Achieng are fighting seven years after their young daughter was killed in a brutal midnight operation amid post-election tensions in Kenya Still emotional as the case against the police officers allegedly involved has been postponed again.

Hotel worker Ms Achieng told the BBC of the death of six-month-old Samantha Pendo, who died from a fractured skull and internal bleeding. “It’s a scar that will never go away.”

After every delay or small progress, the couple received a flood of phone calls. In their search for justice, every expectation leads to disappointment.

The family lives in the western city of Kisumu, an opposition stronghold where riots broke out in August 2017 amid anger over the results of an election that was eventually rerun due to irregularities.

Their small home is located along a road in the informal settlement of Nyalunda, which was the scene of protests on August 11 and the deployment of riot police.

That night, the couple locked the wooden door and blocked it with furniture. Around midnight, they heard neighbors’ doors being broken down and some residents being beaten.

It didn’t take long for the police to arrive at their door.

“They knocked and kicked several times but I refused to open the door,” Mr Abagna told the BBC, adding that he begged them to let his family of four go.

But the beatings continued until police discovered a small space through which they threw a tear gas canister into the one-room house, forcing the family to leave.

Mr Abagna said he was ordered to lie outside the door and the beating began.

“They were going for my head, so I put my hands up and they beat my hands until I couldn’t hold them anymore.”

His wife walked out of the house holding Samantha, who was also struggling to breathe from the tear gas.

“While I was holding my daughter, they continued to beat me with sticks,” Ms Achin said.

The next thing she felt was her daughter hugging her tightly “as if she was in pain.”

“I turned her around and what came out of her mouth? It was foam.”

She shouted that they had killed her daughter and at that point the beating stopped and Mr Abagna was ordered to administer first aid.

The baby revived but was seriously injured.

The couple said police then quickly left and neighbors helped them take Samantha to hospital. She died three days later in intensive care.

Their pursuit of justice was long and frustrating, like the dozens of others caught up in the post-vote violence.

Twelve police officers are expected to be charged with murder, rape and torture, but hearings have not yet taken place at which they will be asked to plead guilty.

Willys Otieno, a lawyer for one of the victims, believes the delay is due to a lack of political will to seek justice for victims of electoral violence.

Uhuru Kenyatta won a re-election later in 2017, but the opposition candidate withdrew from the race. His deputy, William Ruto, won the next vote to take office in September 2022 and later fell out with him.

“The state is no longer interested in prosecuting the perpetrators and it is now left to the victims’ lawyers – those of us working with NGOs and human rights groups – to apply pressure to register charges and prosecute the accused to stand trial,” Mr Otieno told the BBC.

He accused the current attorney general of “acting like the defendant’s lawyer.”

The lawyer said of the two failed defense attempts in October and November last year: “It was not even the defendant who applied to the court for an extension, but the DPP applied to the court for an extension of the defense.”

The third attempt was originally scheduled to take place two days ago but was postponed due to the transfer of the presiding judge and has been rescheduled for the end of this month.

The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) told the BBC it could not deal with requests for comment, but posted on Tragic Events. “The Aftermath of Police Brutality During the 2017 Post-Election Riots.”

But those involved in the case found the delays troubling.

“It was the DPP office that initiated the case, they were the ones who contacted us a few years ago. They asked us to join a victim support group, which was essentially set up to make sure they had witnesses to support their actions.” Irungu Houghton, director of Kenyan rights group Amnesty International, told the BBC.

Following an initial investigation, then-DPP Nurdin’ Hajji launched a public inquiry into the death of baby Samantha. The judge found the police officers guilty.

The prosecutor subsequently ordered further investigations into other cases stemming from police operations in August 2017, and called in independent constitutional investigators, civil society and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to intervene.

The DPP said the investigation found evidence of “systematic use of violence against civilians, including killings, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, all of which constitute serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity”.

In October 2022, prosecutors subsequently sought to charge the suspects under the International Crimes Act, a first in Kenya’s history.

Those charged include commanders who were deemed responsible because of their roles as superior officers – another first for Kenya.

In September 2023, the new DDP Renson M Ingonga took office, but since then there has been little progress in the case.

Mr Horton said there appeared to be “reluctance to prosecute the case”.

Otieno said if the case continues to drag on, the victims’ lawyers may consider seeking justice through private prosecutions or before the East African Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court.

Samantha’s parents supported the idea because without justice, they couldn’t heal—each delay reopened their wounds.

“It doesn’t matter how I do it, but I will make sure justice is done,” said Mr. Abagna, 40, who makes a living as a tuk-tuk driver.

“Because they took something very precious from me – she was everything to me, the little girl I named my mom after.”