18-year-old Siaya Township Secondary School student George Otieno Omondi died two hours after picking up his report card from school, it has emerged.
According to the school principal Godfrey Emmanuel, the school was scheduled to close on Friday, but pressure from students forced him to allow the students to go home on Thursday, and pick up their report cards on Friday morning.
Immediately after picking up his report card, Omondi headed to a quarry at Karapul, Siaya, where the accident happened leading to his death.
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"Had the students agreed for Friday closing day, they would have gone up to the evening and such an incident would not have happened. It's an avoidable accident and we are sorry to the bereaved family," Emmanuel told People Daily Digital on phone.
"The students are indeed facing a lot of difficulties sustaining their stay in school, which forces them to engage in certain activities such as burning and selling of charcoal. We don't know whether the quarry business was part of his efforts to save for his school fees."
It is suspected that Omondi was mining pebbles in Musere, Siaya, when the stones collapsed and killed him.
"I received a phone call and rushed to the scene where I found the body of Omondi lying next to two stones inside a hole," Karapul Sub-location Assistant Chief Dorcas Olimbo confirmed.
Olimbo explained that the hole looked like a stone mining site.
"The tools at the site and the way the body lay beside the two stones indicates that the deceased was indeed mining the stones," Olimbo said.
The administrator said that the deceased was with his colleague who has since been rushed to the hospital for medical attention.
"Omondi was among his colleagues whom they were doing mining expeditions. They have been hospitalized too," Olimbo added.
The body of Omondi was taken to Siaya County Referral Hospital Mortuary.
Siaya residents speak out
Evans Otieno, a resident, urged quarry workers in the area to desist from 'employing' children.
"We suspect that they had been given that job by someone for pay," Otieno observed.
His sentiments were echoed by the area assistant chief who said that the crime amounts to child labour.
She also called on the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) to swing in and close unlicensed mining sites.
Olimbo who said that there are so many quarries in the area urged quarry workers to avoid going into the sites oblivious of the collapsing stones, occasioned by the current rains.
She called on the quarry workers to form the habit of re-filling already excavated depressions that put the lives of both humans and animals in danger.
