Journalists from local and international news outlets were attacked by a knife-wielding gang in Kibra on Monday while covering the first day of bi-weekly anti-regime protests.
Several others were injured after a rowdy gang pelted their vehicles with stones within Kibra’s DO area.
According to Jase Ndungu, a journalist covering the protests in Kibra, an armed gang descended on journalists covering the protests, forcing them to flee for their lives.
“As we were covering the ongoing demonstrations, protesters had lit bonfires and we were watching the protests unfold when we were attacked,” Ndung’u told Citizen Digital.
“The gang had pretended to be part of the protesters but it turned out that they were actually armed,”
According to reports, journalists who were unable to flee from the marauding gang were robbed during the incident, while others were left nursing injuries.
Journalists flee a knife-wielding gang in a Citizen TV vehicle in Kibra, Nairobi. Some of the scribes have lost their phones, wallets and other valuables to the gang #Maandamano pic.twitter.com/22VQjITz4z
Meanwhile, police fired tear gas to disperse anti-government protests on Monday over the high cost of living, after the opposition vowed demonstrations would go ahead despite a police ban.
Security was tight, with riot police stationed at strategic points in Nairobi and patrolling the streets, while many shops were shut and train services from the capital’s outskirts into the central business district were suspended.
Veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga has urged people to take to the streets every Monday and Thursday, even after protests a week ago turned violent and paralyzed parts of Nairobi.
Police clashed with stone-throwing demonstrators in Nairobi’s largest slum Kibera, where protesters set tyres on fire, defying a warning by the Inspector General of Police Japhet Koome who said Sunday that the rallies were “illegal” and would be banned.
The situation was calmer elsewhere in the city, with a heavy police presence in neighbourhoods where protests had taken place last week.