Francis Muturi (Right in a marooned red shirt) with his three children and wife in a family Photo. All three children, Fidelis Waithira, Catherine Wanjiru and Vitalic Kirubi, died in an accident on Sunday.
A mother is burying her three sons and three grandchildren, a widow is laying to rest her husband and her only three children, and a farmhand is bidding a final farewell to her son.
This is the heartbreaking situation that has cast a sombre mood over Kamirithu village in Limuru, Kiambu County, after one family lost seven members in a tragic road crash in Naivasha on Sunday evening.
Francis Muturi (Right in a marooned red shirt) with his three children and wife in a family Photo. All three children, Fidelis Waithira, Catherine Wanjiru and Vitalic Kirubi, died in an accident on Sunday.
Francis Muturi, 42, and his brothers Peter Kirubi, 41, and George Ngugi, 25, perished alongside Muturi’s three children - Fidelis Waithera, 15, Catherine Wanjiru, 13, and Vitalis James Kirubi, seven. Also among the dead is Limwell Munyaka, the son of Muturi’s farmhand, Hannah Wanjiku.
Fidelis Waithera was a Form Two student at Uthiru Girls’ Secondary School, Catherine Wanjiru was a Grade Seven pupil at Rock Preparatory School, Vitalis James Kirubi was in Grade Two at the same school, while Limwell Munyaka was in playgroup at a nearby school.
The seven perished at High Peak, near Naivasha town, on the Mai Mahiu-Naivasha highway as they were heading home from a burial meeting for a relative who was laid to rest on Monday.
According to police, they were killed when the Toyota Prado they were travelling in collided head-on with a truck.
When the Nation visited the family on Tuesday, relatives and friends were gathered in a small meeting, fundraising and making burial arrangements for their loved ones.
The home was a flurry of activity as the family raced to raise postmortem fees for the seven bodies, while service providers haggled over the cost of seven coffins and hearses.
“I have been left without a single child. They have all died. All three of them. The husband I loved is no more. I have been left empty, and I feel completely devastated,” said Felista Njeri, who lost her three children and husband.
“Muturi was a good man. He ran a chain of butcheries, was a devoted family man, and loved his mother - who is ailing and has been living with us - so much. I will miss my children, whom I have lost in their prime. What have I done to God to deserve this?”
Limwel Munyaka, is a neighbour's child who had accompanied the family of Francis Muturi when the accident happened. Also pictured, George Ngugi and his brother Peter Kirubi who perished in a fatal accident on Sunday.
Muturi’s mother, Jecinta Waithira, was overwhelmed with grief at the thought of burying her three sons and three grandchildren and was unable to speak.
Hannah Wanjiku has worked for the Muturi family for eight years, looking after their household and Muturi’s ailing mother.
She told the Nation that Sunday had begun like any other day. Her employer informed her that they were travelling to Naivasha to visit a relative who had lost a family member.
Muturi had offered to take Munyaka along rather than leave him home alone, since his own three children were accompanying him, while his wife, Njeri, stayed back to care for her mother-in-law.
Ms Wanjiku said her son was just three and a half years old, and she had not yet found the strength to visit the mortuary to view his body.
“It will take time. I feel completely crushed,” she said, accompanied by her two other children, both under 10 years.
“He left here a happy child, full of life, only for me to learn that he was no more.”
Esther Wambui Kirubi, sister of the late Muturi and his brothers, is lucky to be alive. They had left Limuru in the mid-morning, but on the return journey, her instincts told her to stay behind.
sciuri@ke.nationmedia.com
