Journalist Wanjeri Kariuki who was shot while covering protests in Nakuru narrates ordeal
![Journalist Wanjeri Kariuki who was shot while covering protests in Nakuru narrates ordeal Journalist Wanjeri Kariuki who was shot while covering protests in Nakuru narrates ordeal](https://citizentv.obs.af-south-1.myhuaweicloud.com/129321/conversions/Untitled-design-%288%29-og_image.webp)
Mediamax Limited employee and Kameme TV reporter Catherine Wanjeri Kariuki.
Mediamax Limited employee and Kameme TV
reporter Catherine Wanjeri Kariuki, who was shot three times during coverage of
anti-government protests, says she was targeted by police during the protests.
Wanjeri, who is recovering from surgery that
removed three rubber bullets from her thigh, says it was not the first time
that she was on the receiving end of brutal police actions.
The Nakuru-based journalist is admitted at the
Annex Hospital, with Thursday being her third day in hospital. Doctors say she
is out of the woods after she was shot at by police four times; three rubber
bullets were lodged in her body and one hit her.
“I left my house at
around 1:30pm thinking that I’m going to cover protests and go back home, little
did I know that I would end up in hospital with stitches on my thigh, and I don’t
know what kind of damage those scars are going to do to me,” she said.
Wanjeri, who was wearing a jacket clearly labelled press while
covering the protests, recounted the moments before she was shot.
“We were
journalists from different media houses standing when I was shot…my mum had
called me 7 minutes before I was shot to tell me that I should be careful,” she
recalled.
Wanjeri gave an account of Tuesday’s protests
in Nakuru and claimed that police officers had singled her out, as this was not
an isolated case.
“Nobody would
convince me that I was not a target, I had been hit with a tear gas canister
but I did not report, I did not even escalate it, I showed my colleagues the
scar on the same leg that I was shot at,” narrated the journalist.
Moments before she was shot, Wanjeri was
captured giving a police officer who was seated in a police vehicle toothpaste,
which she believed would help her ease the effects of tear gas.
What followed was an officer in a police
vehicle who shot at her; the bullets struck her in the thigh.
“To the National
Police Service, you people know who shot me, I believe you are human beings…and
that particular officer who shot me, I know justice will be served to me,” a
teary Wanjeri said.
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