The Boys We Burn Before We Save

On 30th April 2026, two boys were burned alive by a mob in Kahawa West.

Their alleged crime? Phone snatching.

For a few hours, the videos and photos spread across social media. Angry comments followed. Some people celebrated it. Others shook their heads and moved on. Nairobi has become used to these stories.

But I could not move on.

Because those boys reminded me of one of the first pro bono cases I ever took.

His name was Sila.

Sila came from Mathare. He was fast, unbelievably fast. The kind of speed that makes coaches stop and stare. The kind of talent that could have carried him out of poverty on a running track.

But in places like Mathare, talent does not always attract opportunity. Sometimes it attracts predators.

There are always people watching. People who know how to weaponize desperation. Men who recruit children because children are easier to control, easier to sacrifice, and easier to replace.

They spot boys like Sila early.

A child who can run fast becomes useful.

At first, it starts small. A little money to snatch a phone. A quick escape through alleyways adults cannot navigate. Someone else handles the buyers. Someone else controls the network. Someone else takes the real profits.

The children take the risk.

The adults take the money.

Today, some of these stolen phones are reportedly trafficked beyond Kenya’s borders to avoid detection. Entire systems exist around this economy. Organized. Efficient. Ruthless.

People often ask why Nairobi residents avoid using their phones in traffic jams.

This is why.

There are young boys who have mastered the art of disappearance. One second your phone is in your hand. The next second it is gone.

And somewhere nearby, a child is running for his life.

Sila had been doing this since he was ten years old.

Ten.

Before he was old enough to fully understand crime, crime had already understood him.

There is a Swahili saying: siku za mwizi ni arobaini — a thief’s days are numbered.

In 2023, at just fifteen years old, the law finally caught up with Sila.

By then, many people would have already decided who he was.

Criminal.

Thug.

Lost cause.

But we intervened.

Through diversion, we were able to keep him out of the formal criminal justice system. We worked to redirect his life instead of burying it under punishment.

This year, Sila will be sitting for his Form Four exams.

And I keep thinking about that.

What if nobody had stepped in?

What if the streets had claimed him completely?

What if one day he had been caught by an angry mob instead of the law?

Would his body have been the one burning in Kahawa West?

Would people have filmed him too?

Would strangers online have said he deserved it?

The truth we rarely want to confront is that many of the children we condemn were first failed long before they committed any crime.

Failed by poverty.

Failed by broken systems.

Failed by adults who exploit them.

Failed by communities that only notice them once harm has already happened.

Recently, we filmed a documentary titled "Playing for Survival" with members of Green Park FC, one of the community spaces connected to our work at YOLARA. You can watch it here: https://youtu.be/V55InpfPoZ4. Some of the young people spoke honestly about how difficult it is to stay away from crime when survival itself feels like a daily emergency.

When legitimate opportunities disappear, illegal economies become recruitment grounds.

Not because young people are born criminals.

But because someone always offers them a role.

A place.

A way to earn.

A way to survive.

I keep wondering whether someone could have intervened early enough for those two boys in Kahawa West.

Maybe someone once saw potential in them too.

Maybe one of them was talented at football.

Maybe another could draw.

Maybe they laughed loudly as children.

Maybe their mothers still hoped for them.

Now they are gone.

Burned before they were understood.

And that should disturb us.

Not because crime should be excused. It should not.

Phone snatching traumatizes people. It creates fear. It can destroy livelihoods. Communities deserve safety.

But if all we do is burn the children at the very bottom of these criminal economies without disrupting the pipeline that keeps pushing vulnerable children into crime, then we are not solving anything.

We are simply feeding a cycle.

A cycle where vulnerable boys are recruited young, discarded easily, and mourned by almost nobody.

Until the next boys come.

And they always do.

The question is whether we will wait for them to burn too.