Shock and disbelief gripped Kapkiamo village in Baringo North in the morning of 12th February after a 19-year-old girl committed suicide by hanging herself outside their home, a day after killing her four-month-old baby.
The deceased, Lucy Kimuge, described by close relatives as a girl with a promising future after she topped her class in the nearby Kapkiamo Secondary School, chose an avocado tree outside the homestead of Mzee Kandie to commit suicide.
Neighbours spoke in hushed tones upon viewing the blue mosquito net dangling on the fruit tree that she used to snuff out her life.
According to the mother Rael Kandie, the suicide may have been because of pressure to account for her baby boy, Roy Koech, who she had gone out with early on Monday morning only to return alone a few minutes later.
“I asked her where the child was but she told me not to worry insisting the baby had been taken by his father who had promised to take care of him as she continued with her studies,” said Kandie.
Pressure may have led to suicide
The mother further narrated that the girl was seen by a neighbour crying while carrying the baby near the gate and holding a jembe. The neighbour alerted the family but before they could step out to enquire what was happening, she had come back.
Her mother now believes that too much interrogation about the child may have led her daughter to commit suicide.
“On that Tuesday morning, she took her breakfast and dressed up to go to school. I escorted her to find out why she had given out the baby to the father without telling us but she insisted that the baby was safe and sound in Fluorspar area, which is more than 50 kilometres away,” added the mother amid sobs.
But the events of the day which included the news that the area chief was searching for her inquiring on the child’s whereabouts may have pushed the girl to commit suicide.
She reportedly took her dinner and did house chores as usual before telling her mother to wake her up by 5 am on Wednesday morning because she had an early lesson to catch in school, little did the parents know she would commit suicide the next morning.
“She even borrowed my rubber shoes to wear to school, but she was never to go to school as moments later, we found her body hanging outside the house,” added the mother of seven.
They reported the incident to the chief who called in the police and after conducting a search in the compound, found the body of the child in a shallow grave behind their house.
Confirming the incident Baringo North Sub County Police Commander Fredrick Odinga said they collected the two bodies and transferred them to the Baringo County Referral Hospital mortuary to await post mortem to ascertain the cause of death.
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