Trans Nzoia: 12-year-old boy drowns while grazing livestock
By David Musundi
A family in Kapsitwet Location in Trans Nzoia County is griefing their 12-year-old son who drowned in flooded River Sabwani while grazing livestock on Friday afternoon.
The class four pupil Kapsitwet Primary School was herding in the company of two other boys. He slip and fell in the deep waters while his coleagues watched helplessly.
Area resident Charles Opondo said the incident was not the first one and asked the government to look for possible ways of assisting locals avoid drowning.
This is the second drowning death in the last two months in the county. In April, a sixteen-year old boy drowned in the same river within Kwanza sub-county.
Police retrieved the body and took it to Kitale County Referral Hospital mortuary awaiting postmortem.
Area MCA Bernard Wanjala Mulipuko condoled with the two families and asked both the National and County governments to put in place a lasting solution to avert more deaths caused by the raging floods which he said posed great danger to locals.
"These raging flooding is posing great danger to our people yearly as the government agencies sit and wait to deliver foodstuffs during tragedies. We are asking the Ministries of Water and sanitation, Devolution and ASAL to look for a long lasting solution failure to which we will not allow construction of the road to continue’’, he said.
Trans Nzoia Women representative Janet Nangabo and area MP Ferdinand Wanyonyi said protecting of families affected by the flooding had negatively changed locals’ lifetimes and called for urgent measures to avert the perennial flooding.
"The government must move with speed and put in place measures to end severe flooding which has affected many communities now at great risk. The flood defense mechanisms we keep seeing yearly are not enough’’, Said Nangabo.
Wanyonyi said the government should not put much focus on the fight against coronavirus and forget the flood victims who had suffered for too long.
