However, the BBC did track down a teenager who was shot during the incident in the suburb.

Winfrey Wairimu, 16, was hit by a stray bullet as she visited her mother at her confectionery stall by a bus stop when a crowd of people ran by, pursued by security forces.

Ms Wairimu’s mother Tabitha Mwaniki, 37, spoke to the BBC about what happened.

“Security officers were chasing them, lobbing teargas canisters and firing gunshots,” she said.

“She called out ‘Mum!’ and I thought she was just in shock because of the chaos she’d witnessed.

“I called her name, ‘Wairimu, Wairimu’, but she didn’t answer.”

The BBC has since visited the injured teenager and her mother at Nairobi’s Kenyatta National Hospital, where she underwent surgery on Wednesday for a bullet wound on her waist.

By Wednesday evening details began emerging of different allegations from Githurai – of protesters attacking police.

In its main evening bulletin on Wednesday, Kenya’s Citizen TV reported that 20 officers had been injured after a police vehicle was attacked – and repeated the allegation heard earlier by the BBC that another police vehicle had been burned.

Despite the confusing picture about what had happened, Githurai remained part of the conversation in Nairobi as the week progressed.

On Thursday, BBC reporters met several people joining renewed protests in the capital who said news of the alleged massacre had in part inspired them to demonstrate.

One woman told us: “People were massacred yesterday at home. I don’t understand why people are not actually talking about what happened in Githurai.

“The internet was down, electricity was down. So many deaths were recorded, we were hearing gunshots from wherever. But there’s nobody actually talking about what happened in Githurai.

“Nobody is explaining why that number of people was killed there.”

“I barely got any sleep yesterday just thinking about how many people died in Githurai,” she added.

Asked to respond to the fact that no evidence had emerged of a mass killing in the suburb, she said: “There are videos of people being shot down, but at that time things were down – the internet was down, electricity was down.”

Kenya’s Standard newspaper has reported that there were three deaths in Githurai, something the BBC has been unable to confirm and an allegation on which the police have declined to comment.

The BBC has asked Kenya’s police about what happened in Githurai but the force declined to comment.

A human rights advocate who lives and works in Githurai, Njoki Gachanja, told investigations platform Africa Uncensored that the reports of a massacre were untrue.

“All these bodies that people have been talking about – that did not happen in Githurai,” she said in a video posted on Africa Uncensored’s account on Wednesday.

She said the organisation she works for, Githurai Social Justice Centre, had been “on the ground since morning”, held community meetings and forums trying to look for these victims or their families, but had found no evidence of killings at the reported scale.

“I’d like to confirm that I live in Githurai and there’s no massacre in Githurai.”

Ms Gachanja did say they had traced one body with bullet wounds to City Mortuary, the main government morgue.

She confirmed hearing the confrontation between security forces and youths in the area on Tuesday from around 18:00 to 20:00 local time with more gunfire heard overnight.