A Nairobi man is grappling with unimaginable grief after losing five members of his family in a single night, among them his wife and young daughter, in a road accident that struck just hours after they buried their mother.
The collision occurred at around 11 pm on Sunday, September 13, at Kikopey along the busy Nairobi-Nakuru Highway in Gilgil.
An Easy Coach bus travelling from Gilgil towards Nakuru hit a Toyota IST head-on, killing all five occupants of the private vehicle. Scores of bus passengers bound for western Kenya were injured and rushed to nearby hospitals for treatment.
Five family members killed in Kikopey crash came from burial
James Wegesa told journalists that the five who perished were his wife, his young daughter, his brother-in-law, the brother-in-law’s wife, and their daughter.
The group had travelled to Kisumu to lay his mother-in-law to rest and were on their way back to Nairobi when the accident happened.
Wegesa explained that he had attended the burial himself but departed earlier, leaving his wife and the others to travel back on Sunday.
“We were together, they lost their mother and I left after the burial and told them they can come back to Nairobi on Sunday. We buried the mum in Kisumu on Saturday,” he said.
The pain in his account was sharpened by just how small his immediate family was.
“I only had a small family, my wife and my daughter, just the two of them,” he said, his words reflecting the full scale of what he had lost in one night.
Wegesa said he began to grow concerned when he could not reach his family and attempted to call them repeatedly. It was the police who eventually answered the calls.
Officers on the line informed him there had been an accident and directed him to report to Gilgil Police Station for further details.
What he found when he got there confirmed his worst fears. The family that had set off to mourn one person came home to find five more to be mourned.
