The Kenyan mother mourns the 12-year shot watching TV during the Saba Saba protests

On Monday, when anti-government protests switched to parts of Kenya, 12-year-old Bridget Neuki was sitting and watched television in his family’s modest home.

She had no idea that the deadly clashes between these protesters and Kenya’s armed police would find a way in their living room.

A bullet pierced covers, piercing the ceiling and hit the Njoki in the head, her mother Lucy Ngugi told the BBC. Within hours she was declared dead in hospital.

“She was mine,” says G -Ja Ngugi, as she sobbed in her home right outside the capital, Nairobi. “She was all I had.”

“Allow me to be the last mother to cry for the death of a child. An innocent child. I even want to play outside … but inside the house? Oh, Lord, it’s painful.”

Njoki is one of the youngest victims of violence that has shook Kenya in the last month. According to the National Human Rights Committee in Kenya (KNCHR), nearly 70 people were killed and hundreds were injured in the three major protests, which took place since June 17.

Protests – led mainly by young Kenyans – reflect the increasing dissatisfaction with issues such as costs of life, increased taxes, escape public debt and police brutality.

On July 7, the day Njoki died, authorities barricaded major roads in preparation for demonstrations.

Video evidence shows that police shoot with tear gas, and in some cases live circles in residential areas where protesters have regrouped.

“The bullet approached the roof of the house. He penetrated the ceiling, exactly where the gifts were sitting in a chair,” says Nioki’s grandmother, Margaret Neri.

“Her mother immediately caught her and came to scream in my home,” Mom, my child is shot! “I couldn’t even hold the child.”

The family thought they were far from violent clashes, given that they lived in Ndumberi, a village nearly two kilometers (1.2 miles away) from the main road.

“I was sure it’s a bullet,” Nioki’s mother says. “The blast that hit the roof was so strong. Very strong.”

Police rejected the family’s claims, insisting that a bullet could not travel from the main road to their house. But Njoki’s lifeless body told a different story.

A 12-year-old report after her death said that doctors had extracted a bullet from her body and that the injury to her head was “in accordance with a rifle.”

Njoki was a 7th grade student at Benson Njau School in Ting’Ang’a, a nearby village. As a first -born, the family was a viewer, helper and the pride of the household.

“She has always been number one in her class,” says her grandmother. “So obedient, so specific, so clean.

“Even the way she spoke. She was just a very good girl. She liked to serve in a church. She was helping her brothers and sisters. She was cooking for me. She was everything.”

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

Her father is crushed, unable to speak. Her siblings are also silent. The grief hangs like a cover in the house while the Njoki chair sits empty.

The death of dozens like Njoki has attracted international condemnation.

The UN said he was deeply disturbed by the killings and criticized the Kenyan police to use “deadly ammunition” against protesters.

All this feels like a repetition of last year when, according to KCHR, more than 50 died in police repression in months of anti -government protests.

This time, President Ruto took a particularly firm position.

At a national address after the July 7 protests, which killed 38 people, according to the State Human Rights Commission, Ruto said: “Anyone who is caught burning the business or property of another person must be shot in the legs, hospitalized and later taken to court. Do not kill them, but make sure their feet are broken.”

Ruto accused political rivals of inciting violence in an attempt to remove him illegally, but the president’s opponents rejected this claim.

Meanwhile, in Ndumberi, the Njoki family simply calls for the cessation of brutality.

“I will bury Njoki, but I will never forget the day of Saba Saba (July 7). Let Njoki be the last victim of these protests,” says her mother.

Continuing anti -government protest movement has changed Kenyan policy. He demanded transparency, empathy and listening. But she also paid in blood.

And as the uprising continues, the name of Njoki and those of many others has become a symbol – of innocence, over -protection of the state and lack of accountability.

“Let’s not burn our country. Let’s have a dialogue. Let’s talk. We are brothers and sisters, I pray to our government – let this not happen to any other parent,” Njoki’s mother says.

“Don’t let another child die as a njoki.”