Gilbert Mahunya stood at the Mtito Andei Hospital mortuary on Sunday, grappling with a grief that few can imagine. In a single morning, the accident on the Nairobi-Mombasa Highway had taken from him both his wife and his son.
“I have been left alone; this is the family that I have been working so hard for and now, even if I go back to work, who am I looking for money for, and my family is no more,” Mahunya said, his words capturing a loss that goes far beyond bereavement.
Tragedy on the Nairobi-Mombasa Highway
The accident occurred at approximately 7 am on Sunday in the Kanga area, just past Mtito Andei, claiming the lives of 24 church members who were travelling back to Mombasa after attending a funeral in Kakamega.
Several others were injured in the crash and are currently receiving treatment at Makindu Level 4 Hospital.
At the mortuary, an atmosphere of deep sorrow settled over families and relatives who arrived one after another, waiting for postmortem examinations on the bodies of their loved ones to be concluded.
Among them, Mahunya faced a compounded burden: not only processing the loss of his wife and son, but also figuring out how to transport their remains to western Kenya for burial.
Government Response and Cancelled Visit
In the aftermath of the tragedy, the Makueni County government stepped in to ease some of the financial pressure on affected families by waiving medical expenses for all injured survivors.
The county also covered the cost of postmortem examinations for the 24 victims.
Notably, President William Ruto, who was on the third day of a four-day tour of the Ukambani region, had been scheduled to visit Mtito Andei Hospital to launch the facility officially.
That visit was cancelled without any clear explanation, leaving residents without an opportunity to raise concerns about road safety and government accountability on a highway that has claimed many lives over the years.
The crash has once again shone a harsh light on the state of the Nairobi-Mombasa Highway, a route that remains one of the country’s deadliest despite repeated calls for urgent intervention.
For families like Mahunya’s, however, questions of policy and infrastructure feel distant against the immediate, crushing weight of loss.
