Maandamano Massacre

Fist and foremost, Wantam siku zombo.

Now to the sad story of the aftermath of the protests. The death and injuries following the protests is something we’re generally aware of but certainly don’t comprehend fully, imo. Number of victims we get from online media or the news for those who still sit down to watch them. Until we come face to face with collection of injured and dead bodies at end of a long day of protests. That was me, last night.

On most maandamano days, I always took off day so I could attend, but I was on duty jana. 24 hours shift. And bro, let me tell you, the scenes I witnessed at the hospital was traumatizing. You see from jioni to late evening, trauma victims were started to be brought in. By ambulances( shout out St. John’s btw), friends and family members. A few blunt trauma here and there but mostly gunshot wounds. Head shots, chest wounds, abdominal injuries and even fractures. It was a blood bath bro in the facility I work. And a good number of them innocent victims of stray bullets. A young house girl, an old mzee brought in by his wife, a young boy who came back from a job interview (this hurt my heart man 😭), a Boda guy on delivery duties etc

We had record number of staffs on duty in anticipation for that, but we were still overwhelmed. The corridors from Accdient and Emergency to Theatre and then ICU was a stretchers highway the whole night. I moved between these units last night in more times than I did in my whole time working there. Some so severe they couldn’t make to theatre. Otherwise died on the OT table. And quite a few others in ICU. Others still holding on to life by the time I left job this morning. Sasa imagine these are reports from only that facility. Now imagine the case in all the other hospitals? And I’m not in KNH (who would normally be the first stop) btw, for context. How about the unaccounted for bodies?

Now, I don’t intend to get political but this HAS TO STOP. The government has to stop these killings. I don’t care how many days of protests we have in a week or a year, but there’s absolutely no reason for scenes like this in a ‘democratic peaceful country’. You can’t kill us baana. The government of the day should sit down and come up with a solution to this mess, imo. Until then, wantam siku zote majamaa and lest stay safe Gs ✌️