Mrs Jane Njeri Kang’ethe, 41, a mother of six, Sunday narrated how a peaceful evening at Kibiboni village in Hindi Division turned tragic following the attack that claimed the life of her husband and left her son badly wounded.
Her husband, Stephen Kang’ethe, 51, died while undergoing treatment at the Lamu General Hospital while the couple’s second-born son Samuel Kimani, 24, has been airlifted to Kenyatta National Hospital and is currently receiving treatment at the hospital.
The family had just had supper and was preparing to go to bed when hell broke loose in their homestead.
“I had taken my five-year-old granddaughter out for a short call. All of a sudden, I heard gunshots. From what has been happening recently, I did not need to be told what it meant. I dashed into the bush with my granddaughter,” said Mrs Kang’ethe.
While hiding in the bush, she heard her four-year-old son, whom she had left in the house sleeping, crying.
“I told the child I was hiding with not to cry and that I was going to bring her siblings. I ran back to the house, picked up the crying child and together with my husband, we ran for the bushes where I had left the other child,” she added.
A tearful Mrs Kang’ethe recalled how, after running for sometime, she saw her husband fall in front of her.
“I saw my husband lying down but I ran past him with the child in my arms. My plan was to deliver the child to safety and then come and help my husband. All this time, the sound of gunfire filled the air,” she said.
From where she was, Mrs Kang’ethe heard her husband’s phone ringing in the house. That is when she remembered that her 20-year old physically disabled son was still in the house.
Switched on phone
“There was no way I was going to let these hooligans kill my husband and my son. I had to do something. I told the two children not to make a sound. I ran back to the house, switched off my husband’s phone that was at the time ringing loudly. I then hid my son in the store before running to where my husband lay,” she added.
She shook him several times but only got a short, muffled moan. “He was lying in a pool of blood and I could also see he had been shot from behind just above the waist. He was in pain,” said Mrs Kang’ethe.
After the attackers left, she switched on her husband’s phone and called her sister-in-law in Hindi town, instructing her to send them a motorcycle which was later used to carry him to Mokowe jetty.
From there, he was rushed to the Lamu District hospital where he died as he waited to be airlifted to Nairobi.
It was at the Lamu hospital that she found one of her sons, Mr Samuel Kimani, being attended to. He too had been shot.
“When we came in with my husband, I kept wondering where Daniel and his brother Samuel were. Can you imagine my shock when I discovered that Samuel had also been shot in the stomach and was being attended to at the same hospital,” said the distraught mother.
Source-nation.co.ke
How I Saved my Children from the Killer Gang
How I Saved my Children from the Killer Gang
