Female officer attacked during Gen Z protests narrates ordeal

She had fallen as she ran away from the protesters, having been part of a team that was overpowered by the mob, prompting them to flee.

That officer is Emily Kinya, a mother of two, who told Citizen TV's Franklin Wallah that one of her children remains traumatised by the memory of her mother at the mercy of protesters.

She is holding on to hope that soon she will leave this hospital bed and get another chance to work for the country and feed her family. She survived an incident that almost cost her life in the line of duty.

Emily and other police officers were on Wednesday deployed along Muindi Mbingu Street in Nairobi to manage protestors who took to the streets to mark the first anniversary of anti-government protests.

"Kitu around 1:30 walianza kuwa violent, they started attacking us, they pursued and followed us," she said. 

In the heated moment captured on camera, Emily and her colleagues were overpowered by demonstrators, forcing them to take to their heels to get away from imminent danger.

Protestors armed with crude weapons pursued the officers as they pelted them with stones. Emily was cornered and taken down. As she lay on the ground helpless, she heard some of the protestors calling for her death. 

"Luckily, there are those who shielded me, those from behind shouted ‘let’s kill her, they have killed one of us.’ I was already on the ground... those from behind were pleading with them not to kill me," Kinya pointed out. 

In a split second, she was hurt on her head and also suffered other bodily injuries before she was rescued by another group of protestors who took her to a waiting ambulance.

Emily, who joined the National Police Service in the year 2013, says apart from the bodily injuries she suffered, she also lost her mobile phone and other police equipment.

"We are humans as well, I think our lives matter as well. I got a soft tissue injury on the foot and a deep cut on the head, but from the CT scan, the results show it was a deep cut. The moment at the scene was a very depressing incident." 

Similar scenes were captured in Embu, where a male officer was left behind by their speeding motor vehicle and cornered by protesters.

This incident occurred outside Embu Stadium on the Embu-Nairobi Highway. While on Outering Road in Nairobi, another officer was attacked by a protester who escaped from the scene.

"I am a mother of two. My firstborn saw the pictures and was so much traumatised, it was a depressing moment," she said. 

These ugly events rubbed Interior CS Kipchumba Murkomen the wrong way. The CS ordered police officers to use their firearms to defend their lives when faced with danger.

For officers such as Emily, however, such ordeals will only serve to inform her policing experience.