Families of Lake Baringo boat tragedy victims face double pain without burial sites
Coast Guard officers boarding embark on rescue efforts at Lake Baringo where a motor boat carrying more than 19 youths for a church service capsized on Sunday afternoon.
It is double pain for the families affected by the Lake Baringo boat tragedy as it has emerged that all of them had been displaced by floods and are squatting on the land of a well-wisher in a village in Baringo South.
They include the pastor who lost three children among the seven who died in Sunday's tragedy.
The bereaved villagers, all neighbours, now face a new challenge - where to bury their seven loved ones.
They were displaced in 2021 after Lake Baringo burst its banks and swallowed their homes.
Pastor Jane Kikenyi, a single mother of four who lost three daughters in the boat tragedy, sat outside her dilapidated mud hut in Oldepe Osinya village as mourners and neighbours poured into her house to pay their respects.
Mourners spoke in hushed tones, most still in shock at what had happened to their neighbour, the pastor of the Kabikoki Revival Church, whose three daughters died: Abigael (14), Martha (12) and Ruth (9) died in the boat tragedy at midday on Sunday, as funeral plans began.
Burial arrangements
The three bereaved neighbouring families, who live about 100 metres apart in Oldepe Osinya village where they are squatters, discussed the burial arrangements for their deceased relatives.
Pastor Jane and her family lost 10 acres of land in the Lake Baringo floods of 2021.
Their homes are still standing on the shores of the lake, a few kilometres into the water.
“This is not my land. I was displaced three years ago after my house was swallowed by the lake waters. I approached someone who allowed me to temporarily put up on his land as I looked for an alternative place. I now have another nightmare of where they will be buried,” the distraught pastor told Nation.Africa.
All those on the boat were from Pastor Jane's church, including her younger brother Dennis Kikeny, 17, a Form Two student, who died in the incident.
Others who died in the accident were Sandra Leloina, 14, Collins Mbapen Lomenoi, 15, and Millicent Lekimante, 30.
All six were from Loropil village, while the seventh (Lomenoi) was from the neighbouring village of Kabikoki.
Pastor Jane visited the Baringo County Referral Hospital morgue in Kabarnet on Tuesday and positively identified the bodies of her three daughters and younger brother.
Her first-born son, who was also on the ill-fated boat, survived the accident.
Like her former neighbours in Loropil village, Pastor Jane had relocated to Oldepe-Osinya village after a well-wisher donated part of their land for a temporary stay while they looked for alternative land.
Pastor Jane's father is Pastor David Kikenyi, who oversees six churches under the Revival Church in Loropil, Kiserian, Lokumkum, Salabani, Kokwa Island and Kabukoki - where her daughter serves.
Fourth-born son
He said goodbye to his fourth-born son Dennis and his neighbour Milicent, who were on their way to the youth fellowship on Kokwa Island while he went to a meeting in Kabarnet.
He had told some of the young people to stay behind so they could attend the service at the neighbouring Loropil church, he revealed.
“This is a very big blow to us,” said Pastor Kikenyi, who is mourning a son and three grandchildren.
Like his daughter Jane and others displaced from the village of Loropil, he was given a small plot of land by a friend for temporary shelter after their homes were flooded.
The pastor had lost everything in the floods and more than 10 acres of land was still under water.
"As we speak, we do not know where to bury the six people we lost in my neighbourhood. As you have seen, we are all close neighbours and the land we are living on belongs to someone who was philanthropic enough to allow us to stay temporarily while we look for alternative places," he said, explaining the burden the tragic loss has placed on the displaced.
"The government should help us because the land we are living on is not ours," the priest appealed.
A relative, Wilson Leyiale, said the deaths were a great loss to the whole village, which had lost young people.
"We are appealing for help to bury the deceased. It is so tragic to lose four members of one family. To make matters worse, the victims are internally displaced people who were forced from their homes by the swollen Lake Baringo," said Mr Leyiale.
At the neighbouring homestead, 100 metres from Pastor Kikenyi's house, another family was mourning the death of their daughter, Sandra Leloina.
Second daughter
Her mother, another Loropil IDP, is still coming to terms with the loss of her second daughter.
"It is sad that while we are still struggling with the challenge of displacement, we have now lost loved ones in Sunday's incident, but we don't know where to bury them," she lamented.
A few metres away, at Millicent Kamante's homestead, funeral arrangements were being made for the mother-of-two, who had been assigned by the church to accompany the 22 young people who were going to Kokwa Island for a youth retreat.
Her two children, aged between two and seven, clung to their father, unaware of their mother's death.
Her husband, James Kamante, said goodbye at 8am on Sunday, not knowing he was saying goodbye for the last time.
"I'm so devastated because not only have I been left to look after our two young children, but I'm in the dilemma of where to bury her because I don't have any land. I've also been displaced by the flooding of Lake Baringo and my makeshift shack is on someone else's land," said the distraught father.
