This archive report was first published on 5 September 2019.
On the streets of Nairobi, a new and highly trained force is making its presence known. The first all-female SWAT team in Sub-Saharan Africa, comprising 48 heavily armed officers, has been deployed to patrol the city's streets.
Drawn from the Administration Police Service, the team graduated in combat training in August 2019 from a police training camp in Ngong. Their rigorous training included handling various weapons and explosives, as well as boxing, wrestling, judo, and karate.
These women are not your ordinary police officers. They have undergone intense physical and combat drilling, making them capable of taking on the toughest situations. They can scale multi-storey buildings, rescue hostages, and conduct jungle operations.
The team's skills were put to the test recently when a member led them to win the Women Pistol Shooting competition at the Eastern Africa Police Chiefs Cooperation Organisation games in Kasarani, Nairobi.
Administration Police Service boss Noor Gabow expressed his excitement about the new unit, stating that they will enhance police visibility and respond to distress calls from the public while supplementing existing ground forces.
Interior CS Fred Matiang'i, who presided over their combat training graduation, was impressed with the new unit's skills, saying, "What we have witnessed today gives us confidence that we have the capacity to protect our people. We can rest assured that we have more officers who can undertake intricate security operations."
Inspector-General of Police Hilary Mutyambai commended the collaboration achieved in training the team, which joins other units within the National Police Service that are usually on standby for special operations.
