On September 3, a bus belonging to the Simba Bus Company left Moyale town for Nairobi at 10pm.
But the journey was cut short when the driver encountered a hail of bullets fired by a group of unknown gunmen near the Dambala Fachana area, some 40 kilometres from Moyale town.
The shooting happened between Qate and Maye on the Moyale-Marsabit highway, just 30 minutes after the bus that was carrying 50 passengers had left Moyale town.
Erick Mutua,40, was behind the wheel when the bus came under fire.
“I had barely driven for 30 minutes from Moyale town when the attack happened,” Mutua, a father of three, recounts in an interview with the Nation in Moyale.
He recalls how, a few minutes after undergoing security checks at Odda Police Barrier, he started going for the maximum acceleration in the hope of safely completing the more than 10-hour drive to Nairobi as usual.
Typical of every journey on the route, especially at night, there is always ‘the untold calm as soon as the interior lights go off, with some passengers dozing off and trusting the driver with their safety on the road.
According to Mutua, there seemed to be an unusual “calm before the storm” that befell them.
To date, the man from Makueni County still struggles to describe exactly how he felt before the shooting incident.
The highway looked unusually deserted and an eerie sense of panic gripped him as he struggled with a stubborn inner voice that was vehemently opposed to the night’s journey.
However, being a believer, he surrendered everything to God to take control.
Instinctually, he felt the urge to unusually accelerate upon reaching the long bend at the Dambala Fachana area.
No sooner had they completed the bend than he heard gunshots that came from a ditch along the highway.
The attackers were strategically positioned in the ditches that no one would spot even if he stopped at the area.
The first bullet hit the bus directly at the co-driver’s seat, as the second and the third flew over the driver’s head— a clear indication that the attackers were interested in silencing the driver, first.
Mutua recounts with a trembling voice how he ducked the bullets as he continued accelerating the bus in a wild rage and panic.
To his greatest shock, he noticed that the bus' left front wheel had been ripped off by the bullets, setting it on a dangerous wobbly motion at such terrific speed.
He remembers quickly and efficiently turning the wobbly bus around between the highway to ensure that he drove right in the middle to avert getting off the highway and landing in a ditch.
He kept a vigilant watch and fixed his gaze on the highway ahead as he struggled to stop the bus from derailing and getting off the road.
The vehicle, he recalls, basically would come through and stop and then leap forward, like a huge leap, and then violently throw people out of the way.
He says he was well aware that landing in the ditch was not the best option for escape and protection during such an attack as it would effortlessly allow the attackers to accomplish their mission.
As the hail of bullets bartered the body of the bus, the passengers drowned in an overwhelming panic and frantically looked for all ways of escape despite the constant calls by the driver and the conductor for all the passengers to duck down to avoid the bullets hitting their heads.
Some passengers, he recalls, let out chilling cries and scary screams as though the bullets had hit them already. Luckily, the driver managed to drive as fast as he could, past the attackers.
That was the moment he learnt that the lives of all the passengers depended on his bravery and wise decisions.
He was also grateful that he had drawn lessons from an incident when the vehicle he was driving five years ago along the Kisumu– Bungoma road got a tyre burst and he had to struggle till he brought it to a halt.
Mutua says the attack sounded like an “endless blasting of bullets hitting the windscreen, all the metal panels, rims and the bus body” that lasted for nearly three minutes which though appeared as three whole years in hell.
The driver remembers how he dangerously drove for nearly 15 kilometres before they decided to stop at Bori Junction after feeling that they had escaped the attackers.
Hardly had the passengers gotten out of the bus when they noticed another vehicle following from behind, forcing some of the passengers to scamper for safety in the thickets, suspecting that it could be the attackers trailing them.
Upon drawing closer to the bus, the vehicle stopped sending Mutua and a few passengers left on the bus into violent fits of panic.
However, the driver of the Toyota Land Cruiser got out screaming for help, saying his brother had been shot in the head and needed urgent medication.
It was at this moment when the other bus passengers, who fled to the thicket, resurfaced and they called the police for help as they tried to account for every passenger that was aboard that bus.
When the police arrived, they rushed the injured passengers to Sololo Mission Hospital only for the Toyota Land Cruiser’s co-driver, who was also the driver’s twin brother, to be pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital.
Mutua in conclusion urged other drivers to stop panicking in the event of a similar attack or a tyre burst.
“I don’t feel my courage to drive past the assailants and through such a hailstorm of bullets was a heroic act, but a divine hand that worked tirelessly to help us get out of the attack unharmed,” Mutua concludes.
He maintains that he would continue with his job on the same highway despite the appeal by his wife, who tried to prevail upon him to look for a job, on some other safer routes.
He has been driving a public service vehicle for over 10 years now and believes that his life would only be snuffed by bullets or any other mishap when God permits it.
Different narratives are now emerging about why the unknown assailants could have targeted the Salama Bus that now remains bullet-bartered and stalled in Moyale town awaiting repair.
Some have held that the attack could have been a scheme by other rival bus companies plying the route to scare them out of business in the region.
Others also aver that the attack could have been perpetrated by the Ethiopian militants for reasons that are yet to be disclosed.
Moyale Deputy County Commissioner Benedict Munywoki told the Nation that the police were pursuing assailants who were still at large.
He said investigations were still underway to establish how the attack was executed and bring the culprits to book.
