, NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 7 – Matilda Musimbi fought through the emotionally wrecked parents who had crowded the hospital until she got to the Wards where victims of the Kakamega Primary school tragedy were receiving first aid after a stampede that left 14 children dead.
Musimbi had just been dropped by a motorcycle at the Kakamega Teaching and Referral hospital and she still recalls her words to the rider.
“I told him that I want to take my child since the hospital was overwhelmed and rush her to a nearby private hospital,” she narrated.
Hospital bed after the other, an overly anxious Musimbi went looking for her 9-year-old daughter but she did not trace her.
As the clock ticked, her anxiety turned into fear and desperation but as she was about to leave, she saw lifeless bodies of pupils lying on the floor.
“The first body was that of my daughter,” she said, “I did not believe my eyes.”
And when she regained strength to talk, she said “it is very painful to lose a child, in an incident like this. I had spent the whole day with my child.”
In her last words, Musimbi who is also a teacher in that school told her daughter; “mama tutukutane nyumbani. (Mum, let us meet at home).”
“At the hospital, we were so many parents, all expecting to see our children alive. Not dead,” she said.
It was less than 2 hours when she parted ways with her daughter “who was in high spirits.”
“The pain is unbearable, I plead with my fellow Kenyans to pray for us, no parent takes a child to school to be called and told he or she is dead,” Musimbi said, firmly holding onto the portrait of her daughter.
A requiem mass was held at Bunkhungu stadium on honour of the departed children ahead of their burial.
Deputy President William Ruto, who visited victims in hospital soon after the tragedy, has assured that the government will support the affected families.
And her story is that of every parent who lost a child in the stampede, which locals have described as mysterious.
One after the other, the parents were on Friday picking the remains of their children from the mortuary, ahead of a requiem mass at the Bukhungu stadium.
-No forthcoming answers 3 days after the incident-
Three days after the pupils lost their lives, the country is yet to know what caused the stampede, with the only comfort being “investigations are ongoing.”
Parents are yet to come to terms with the incident that robbed them their children and are pleading with the government to provide answers.
One of the children was buried on Tuesday, a day after the tragedy, in line with the Muslim tradition.
“We were not informed after the incident happened. We were only called to the mortuary to see the lifeless bodies of our children whose death whose cause is yet to be established,” another parent, Miriam, said.
There has been no investigations update from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI).
Investigators have remained tightlipped over the ongoing investigations and if there is any lead established so far.
Post Views:
36
