Body found in metal suitcase: LGBTQ activist Edwin Chiloba killed in Kenya

The fashion designer Edwin Chiloba is murdered in Kenya in an apparently brutal manner, his body dumped in a metal suitcase on the side of the road.

Body found in metal suitcase: LGBTQ activist Edwin Chiloba killed in Kenya

The fashion designer Edwin Chiloba is murdered in Kenya in an apparently brutal manner, his body dumped in a metal suitcase on the side of the road. According to LGBTQ activists, Chiloba stood up for marginalized groups with his fashion - and possibly paid for it with his life.

Kenyan LGBTQ activist Edwin Chiloba has been killed, according to media reports. According to the report, the body of the 25-year-old fashion designer and model was found in a metal suitcase on the side of the road about 40 kilometers from the town of Eldoret in the west of the country. A police spokeswoman told The Star newspaper that the motive for the crime was not yet known.

LGBTQ people live dangerously in the mostly conservative, Christian country. Homosexuality is punishable in Kenya: same-sex sex can sometimes even be punished with imprisonment of up to 14 years. The English abbreviation LGBTQ stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer.

"It is truly worrying that we continue to see an escalation of violence against LGBTQ Kenyans," the Human Rights Commission of Kenya said. "Every day the human rights of LGBTQ people are violated, with little consequence for the perpetrators." The organization called on the authorities to swiftly investigate and prosecute the perpetrators. Another LGBTQ activist was murdered last April.

As several media reports, motorcycle taxi drivers called the police after they saw the metal suitcase being unloaded from a car with a defaced license plate on the side of the road.

In the west of the country, where Chiloba lived, the Kenya LGBTQ Feminist Forum said the designer used fashion as a way "to deconstruct gender and stand up for the rights of marginalized groups". "We as a community of Kenyans want to know what happened to Edwin, why he was murdered and who left his body at the scene," said Becky Mududa of the organization.