Article by: Niladri Sekhar Dutta and Shalini Deb Roy, The North-Eastern Chronicle
Visual by: Subham Kr Dey
‘Zombies of Nairobi’ as the name suggests it may make you think as there are real zombies in Kenya, but actually it’s not the case. It’s a harrowing documentary that has gone viral on the webs and has left us in shock, disbelief, sadness and anger to see the deplorable living conditions of Nairobi’s homeless kids.
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What’s in the documentary?
The documentary gives viewers an insight look into the story of Kenya’s liquid drugs and their impact on street children. In Nairobi the children are hooked on glue and jet fuel. They use it as drugs to escape their terrible existence of living. It maybe hard to understand what exactly has pushed these children to this extreme.
The footage shown is upsetting and may be deeply disturbing to see the glue-sniffing street children, but this documentary shows the side we never get to see. The horrifying scenes will certainly open your eyes to the uncanny part of Nairobi no one wants to talk about.
What is it turning the Youths and Kids into the path of Drugs?
Kenyan security agencies have attributed the increased cases of youth violence to the use of legally, affordable and readily available pharmaceutical drugs, defining a new front of substance abuse proving hard to police.
A woman from Kenya’s Murang’a County told how she was distressed as recently assaulted by her 16-year-old son. And how her son started skipping schools since he had become addicted to those tablets.They are often violent when they take the drugs which they actually buy from a local chemists.
The drugs are cheap at cost and that’s what driving the young children down the road of self-destruction. Substance abuse has become so cheap that Drugs are readily available and facilitated by unscrupulous traders in legally established enterprises.
Serious effects of drugs abuse
They are known by such street names as ‘tap’, ‘kuruka’ or ‘kuruga’. These can cause schizophrenia that triggers bouts of random violence, sharp increase in body temperature (malignant hyperthermia) leading to muscle breakdown and kidney and cardiovascular system failure.
Some of it are predominant to our central nervous syste and are colourless, tasteless hence serving the ideal purpose for being ingested. These drugs mostly causes teen crimes, suicides and robbery. Imagine a livelihood in an environment with theft, fight and prevarication
However, one of the basic which leads the youth to involvement in such activities is their frustration and hunger. The documentary shows the harsh reality of the slums, the living conditions of people of Nairobi. To get a relief from their stress and anxiety they sniff into glues to get into a stage of hallucinations and vertigo.
Perhaps, the solution to this matter can begin in the families of affected individual, as because the families too often don’t speak about the people who have plunged into problems, assuming that the matter will find it’s way out. As, a young person may not know that his anti-social behaviour is hurting the family and will create troubles for them in future.
Therefore, it is necessary to make people inculcate societal values in children so they grow up knowing their roles in society. The Kenyan Government’s regulation is required and should emphasise the importance of education or to improve the financial condition for those slums and street kids proper way. So poverty don’t lead to crimes and drugs are what is eating the city of Nairobi from inside.
Thus, society should adopt a proactive approach in dealing with youth zombification. Fortunately there are community centres working to rescue these kids, rehabilitate them and sent them to schools. Thus after watching this documentary we hope Kenya can come out this dark misery of Drugs and crime.
