Mary Muthoni is still in deep anguish over the fate of her 28-year-old son who went missing in the operation to recover stolen cattle in Suguta valley.
Tired of waiting for answers from the police force since the November incident, Muthoni has travelled from Kerugoya to Baragoi, Samburu district.
When The Standard On Saturday investigation team visited the market town, Muthoni was readying herself to search for her son Anthony Maina in the dreaded Suguta Valley, where even police fear to tread.
It has been six weeks of heartbreak for the single mother as her family of two daughters, a daughter-in-law and a two-year-old granddaughter search for her only son. Worse could come as she scours the hyena and bandit-prone Suguta Valley, which forms part of the hilly terrain in Samburu County. This is an area where the police have reported the highest fatalities, where some officers posted at the nearby Baragoi police station vow never to go.
It is also the place that Maina is thought to have been last seen alive, as one among the contingent of over 100 policemen and reservists that came under ambush from heavily armed raiders. About 50 policemen and reservists were killed in the attack that also left many others injured and maimed.
After several fruitless visits to the Chiromo Mortuary and Police headquarters, Muthoni is taking the search for his missing son to Namelok, the exact location within the dreaded Suguta Valley where the attack occurred.
“All I want is to find any of his remains, I would be glad to get a single bone of his body,” said Ms Muthoni when we met her at the Baragoi police station where she expected to be directed to the place that has been christened as the Valley of Death. She has no guarantee of ever finding her son or his remains, but would rather search the dangerous grounds herself, even though she is alive to the level of insecurity there and the possibility of losing her own life.
Ms Muthoni had been at the Baragoi police station for the second day when we met her pleading for directions and just possibly, a police vehicle to take her and her family on the recovery effort.
Meanwhile her family was all tears when it became clear to them that the police would not facilitate their transport and security in the search for Mr Maina who is a father, a son, a husband and a brother.
She expects to find closure on her missing son would help her and her family heal and move on, rather than wait for his return even when her gut feeling is that he is still alive somewhere, perhaps kidnapped by Turkana militia.
The police were, however, either not willing or too afraid themselves to go to the area where dozens of their colleagues had been killed weeks before.
The few we talked to admitted to still being traumatized after seeing the mutilated bodies of their fallen peers in the recovery operation two days after the November ambush.
Friday 28 December 2012
http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?articleID=2000073874&story_title=Kenya-Families-still-in-pain-over-killings-of-kin
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