When Catherine Wanjeri left her home on Tuesday, July 16, to cover the anti-government protests in Nakuru City, she did not expect to end up in a hospital bed nursing gunshot wounds.
Ms Wanjeri, a reporter working with MediaMax Ltd, was shot by police officers along Kenyatta Avenue four times; three rubber bullets lodged in her body, one of them causing a serious injury.
Recounting her ordeal at the Nakuru Annex Hospital where she is recuperating after surgery to remove three rubber bullets from her thigh, Ms Wanjeri asserted she was being targeted alongside other journalists.
K24 journalist Catherine Wanjeri Kariuki, who was shot four times by police during an anti-government protest on 16 July, is overcome with emotion as she is interviewed shortly after being discharged from Nakuru County Referral and Teaching Hospital on 19 July 2024.
Photo credit: Boniface | Nation
She recalled an officer questioning her presence and asking why she was following them (officers) yet they were not the ones protesting.
At one point, the police teargassed journalists to disperse and prevent them from recording the arrest of a disabled protestor. The teargas also affected Kenya Prisons officers who were passing by.
"When I left home around 1:30 pm to cover the protests, I expected to return by evening. Little did I know I would end up in a hospital with stitches. I don't know how long the recovery will take or the extent of the damage these scars will leave," she said.
Moments later, her mother received a call asking for consent for her daughter's emergency surgery.
It is alleged that one of the four officers who were aboard a vehicle from Salgaa Police Station shot Ms Wanjeri at close range.
She believes one officer pulled the trigger before the vehicle sped away, leaving her bleeding on the ground.
Her colleagues rushed her to Valley Hospital where she was stabilised and transferred to Annex Hospital for surgery.
Ironically, moments before her shooting, Ms Wanjeri had given a police officer seated in the same vehicle some toothpaste to help ease the effects of teargas.
Clearly labelled press jacket
This was not Ms Wanjeri’s first experience of being targeted by police despite wearing a clearly labelled press jacket while covering the protests.
She recalled an officer's threat during a previous protest: "Nimekuona na nimekumark ( I have seen you, and I have marked you)".
After the officer's threat, she was teargassed while doing a live link and days later she was shot.
“Nobody would convince me that I was not a target, it is not the first time I have been targeted. I had been hit by a teargas canister but I did not report nor escalate the matter. I just showed my colleagues the scar on the same leg that I was shot at,” she recounted.
