Kenya’s mother mourns a 12-year-old shot, watched TV during the dog protests

On Monday, when anti-government protests swept through the Kenya areas, 12-year-old Bridget Nyaki sat and watched TV in the modest house of her family.

She did not imagine that the deadly clashes between these protesters and Kenya’s armed police would find the road in her living room.

One bullet broke through the roof, punching the ceiling and hit the head, her mother, Lucy Ngugi, tells the BBC. She was recognized as dead for several hours at the hospital.

“She was mine,” says Ms Ngugi, sobbing in her home near the capital, Nairobi. “She was all I had.”

“Let me be the last mother who cried out of the baby’s death. An innocent child. I would even like her to play on the street … But inside the house? Oh, Lord, it hurts.”

NJOKI is one of the youngest victims of violence that Kenya has flared over the last month. According to the Kenya National Human Rights Commission (KNCHR), nearly 70 people were killed and hundreds were injured in three major protests that have taken place since June 17.

Protests – mainly led by young Kenyans – reflect growing dissatisfaction with problems such as the cost of life, tax hiking, state debt escape and the cruelty of the police.

On July 7, the day when the newok died, the authorities barricaded large roads, preparing for demonstrations.

Video messages show that the police shoot tears, and in some cases live tours in residential areas where the participants of the rally regroup.

“The bullet passed through the roof of the house. It penetrated the ceiling, where the Nicks sat on the chair,” says grandmother Nyaki Margaret Nero.

“Immediately her mother grabbed her and shouted to my house, ‘Mom, my baby was shot! “I couldn’t even hold a baby.”

The family found that they were far from violent contractions, given that they lived in the village of NDUMBER, almost two kilometers (1.2 miles) from the main road.

“I was sure it was a bullet,” says Nyaki’s mother. “The blow that hit the roof was so loud. Very loud.”

Police rejected the family claims, insisting that the bullet could not go from the main road to their home. But the inanimate body of Nyaki told another story.

The report after the death of 12 years of age states that doctors received a bullet from her body and that the head of the head “fits the shot”.

NJOKI was a 7th grade student at the Benson -Nya school in the neighboring village of Ting’ang. As for the first time in the family, she was a warden, assistant and pride of the house.

“She was always the number one in her class,” the grandmother says. “Such obedient, so specific, so neat.

“Even in how she said. She was just a very good girl. She loved to serve in the church. She helped her siblings. She was preparing for me. She was everything.”

Nyaki’s mother describes her as “a beautiful girl, a charming girl who had so many dreams.”

Her father was defeated, unable to speak. Her siblings are also silent. The grief hangs like a shroud in the house, and the chair sits empty.

The death of dozens, like the units, caught international condemnation.

The UN stated that it was very concerned about the killings and criticized the Kenyan police for using the “deadly ammunition” against the participants of the rally.

All this feels like last year, when, according to KNCHR, more than 50 were killed in police repressions on the moon of anti -government protests.

This time, President Ruto took a particularly tough position.

According to the national appeal after the July 7 protests, 38 people were killed, according to the State Human Rights Commission, Ruto said: “Everyone who caught the burning of business or property of another person must be shot in the leg, hospitalized and then taken to court. Don’t kill them, but make them be broken.”

Ruto has accused political rivals of inciting violence in the desire to abolish him illegally, but the president’s opponents rejected the statement.

Meanwhile, in NDUMBER, the Nyaki family simply calls for a halt.

“I will bury Nyaki, but I will never forget the Saba Day (July 7). Let him become the last victim of these protests,” her mother says.

The anti -government protest movement has continued Kenyan policy. This demanded transparency, empathy and hearing. But it also paid in the blood.

And since the uprising continues, the name of Nyaki and those who are lost became a symbol – innocence, state overcoming and lack of accountability.

“Let’s not burn our country. Let’s have a dialogue. Let’s talk. We are brothers and sisters, I ask our government,” let it happen to any other father, “says Nyak.

“Don’t let other baby die like Nicks.”