{"id":3351,"date":"2025-10-17T11:35:47","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T11:35:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/10\/17\/kenya-holds-state-funeral-for-opposition-leader-odinga-after-mourning-chaos\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T11:35:47","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T11:35:47","slug":"kenya-holds-state-funeral-for-opposition-leader-odinga-after-mourning-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/10\/17\/kenya-holds-state-funeral-for-opposition-leader-odinga-after-mourning-chaos\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenya holds state funeral for opposition leader Odinga after mourning chaos"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><em>Odinga\u2019s body will next travel to his family\u2019s home region of western Kenya, where more huge crowds are expected, before a private burial service this weekend.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div aria-live=\"polite\" aria-atomic=\"true\">\n<p>Kenya has held a state funeral for revered opposition leader <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/opinions\/2025\/10\/15\/raila-odinga-the-symbol-and-symptom-of-kenyas-political-tragedy\">Raila Odinga<\/a>, a day after security forces <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/video\/newsfeed\/2025\/10\/16\/chaos-erupts-at-public-viewing-of-former-kenyan-pm-raila-odingas-body\">killed several people<\/a> after opening fire to disperse crowds of mourners at a stadium hosting a public viewing of his body.<\/p>\n<p>Thousands of mourners gathered amid a heavy security presence at Nairobi\u2019s Nyayo National Stadium on Friday, waving white handkerchiefs and dancing at the venue, which was bedecked with large banners featuring Odinga\u2019s portrait, while others blew whistles and vuvuzelas, a brightly-coloured plastic horn.<\/p>\n<section>\n<h2>Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n<p><span>list of 3 items<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span>list 1 of 3<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2025\/10\/16\/police-in-kenya-fire-tear-gas-to-disperse-mourners-at-raila-odinga-viewing\">At least 2 killed as police in Kenya fire shots to disperse Odinga mourners<\/a><\/li>\n<li><span>list 2 of 3<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/opinions\/2025\/3\/21\/kenyas-handshake-politics-elite-self-preservation-disguised-as-compromise\">Kenya\u2019s handshake politics: Elite self-preservation disguised as compromise<\/a><\/li>\n<li><span>list 3 of 3<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/opinions\/2025\/7\/28\/kenyas-protests-are-not-a-symptom-of-failed-democracy-they-are-democracy\">Kenya\u2019s protests are not a symptom of failed democracy. They are democracy<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n<p>President William Ruto attended the ceremony, alongside heads of parliament and the judiciary. Somalia\u2019s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was among the African dignitaries present.<\/p>\n<p>Odinga, 80, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2025\/10\/15\/kenyan-opposition-leader-raila-odinga-dies-of-heart-attack-in-india-at-80\">died from a suspected heart attack<\/a> at a health clinic in southern India on Wednesday, triggering a huge outpouring of grief across much of his home country.<\/p>\n<p>Affectionately known as \u201cBaba\u201d (father in Swahili), Odinga was arguably t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/opinions\/2025\/10\/15\/raila-odinga-the-symbol-and-symptom-of-kenyas-political-tragedy\">he most important political figure<\/a> of his generation in Kenya.<\/p>\n<p>Though mainly known as an opposition figure, Odinga became prime minister in 2008 and also struck a political pact with former President Uhuru Kenyatta in 2018, and with Ruto last year in a career of shifting alliances.<\/p>\n<p>Although he never succeeded in winning the presidency despite five attempts, he played a central role in returning the country to multi-party democracy in the 1990s and is credited as the main force behind a widely praised constitution passed in 2010.<\/p>\n<p>The mourners who attended Friday\u2019s ceremony paid tribute to Odinga\u2019s efforts as an activist.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRaila Odinga, the father of democracy in Kenya, was a selfless leader who would risk everything \u2013 even his life \u2013 to make Kenya work,\u201d Jean Jerry Abeka, 24, told the Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n<p>Odinga had, however, become a controversial figure of late, said Al Jazeera\u2019s Catherine Soi, reporting from his funeral service.<\/p>\n<p>There have been a lot youth-led antigovernment protests over the past year, said Soi, and Odinga\u2019s political party \u201caligned with the government so a lot of people say that he was a betrayer\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>However, \u201cright now they\u2019re saying that even though there was anger, a lot of them are saying they want to remember him for the things that he did for this country,\u201d concluded Soi.<\/p>\n<p>There were chaotic scenes on Thursday as his body was repatriated from India and taken to a stadium on the outskirts of Nairobi to lie in state.<\/p>\n<p>As huge crowds surged towards a VIP gate at one point, security forces opened fire, killing at least three people, according to prominent rights group VOCAL Africa.<\/p>\n<p>It said on X that it had confirmed \u201cthree bodies from Kasarani (stadium) have been received this evening at City Mortuary.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Police also said three people were killed, but Kenyan channels KTN News and Citizen TV put the number of deaths at four, with dozens injured.<\/p>\n<p>Odinga\u2019s body will next travel to western Kenya, his family\u2019s home region, where more huge crowds are expected on Saturday, before a private burial service on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>His death leaves a leadership vacuum in the opposition, with no obvious successor as Kenya heads into a potentially volatile election in 2027.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Odinga\u2019s body will next travel to his family\u2019s home region of western Kenya, where more huge crowds are expected, before a private burial service this weekend. Kenya has held a state funeral for revered opposition leader Raila Odinga, a day after security forces killed several people after opening fire to disperse crowds of mourners at &#8230; <a title=\"Kenya holds state funeral for opposition leader Odinga after mourning chaos\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/10\/17\/kenya-holds-state-funeral-for-opposition-leader-odinga-after-mourning-chaos\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Kenya holds state funeral for opposition leader Odinga after mourning chaos\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3352,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}