Sorrow has hit Kamunyu village in Gatundu North, Kiambu County, after a 16-year-old form three student drowned in the rocky Chania River.
Rosemary Njeri, a student at St. Joseph Ndithiini Secondary School in Machakos County, is said to have slipped into the river while on an adventurous expedition yesterday evening.
Njeri, who was taking a selfie when the horrific incident happened, was in the company of two other girls.
Parents got to know about the shocking news after one of the girls accompanying Njeri raised the alarm, prompting a search for the body - a rescue mission that was unfruitful by the time of publishing this story.
According to locals, huge rocks, boulders, and the dangerously steep state of the river hampered the rescue mission.
According to Njeri’s grandfather, John Njau, she had finalized her back-to-school preparations, including packing her possessions, and was all set to report to school today, but the unfortunate happened.
“The girl had packed all the items she needed to go back to school, but the selfie activity took her life. We were informed about the incident, but because it was already dark, there was nothing much we could have done. We have now been left to search for her body to bury, which is very saddening.
“The girl had big dreams of excelling in her education to help her family after. It’s sad that her life had to end a day before reporting back to school,” Njau said.
Search mission
On Tuesday, locals unsuccessfully camped at the river in search of the girl's body, a task that proved tedious due to the huge boulders at the site and the lack of proper gear by the locals to dive into the deep waters.
“We are currently searching the body without any form of expertise. We are only using trees and hooks because we have no otherwise. The river is dangerously filled with rocks, and water is passing underneath, which makes our search mission even harder,” Daniel Gitau, a youth leading the search mission, told journalists.
Distressed locals revealed that several other people had lost their lives in a similar manner, slipping and later drowning at the same spot.
Among them is a teacher who, two years ago, fell into the river while crossing to the other ridge. Residents said that retrieving his body took weeks because it was trapped under the rocks, which is very risky.
Following the incident, parents cautioned children from visiting the site alone, saying it had proved dangerous and that unless it was fully fenced or a better bridge erected, more tragedies would be inevitable.
They urged the local government to support them with divers to reinforce their efforts to retrieve the body.
At the same time, they demanded the construction of a proper bridge across the river, noting that they have been risking their lives crossing the river through the huge boulders.
“This place should be fully fenced and a new bridge put up to aid locals in crossing from one side of the ridge to the other. We have lost other lives here, and we should not wait to lose another,” Simon Kimori, an elder from the village, said.
