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.
