Kakamega, 05 February, 2020 / 4:03 am (ACI Africa).
Monday morning was just like any other school day for Mark Baraza who usually saw his first-born daughter, Lydia Lavender Akosa, off to school before resuming his daily activities.
After seeing little Lydia off to a waiting taxi that took her to Kakamega Primary School, a school located in Kakamega County in Western Kenya, Baraza says he left for his job in Kakamega town where he worked menial jobs.
As usual, he hoped to pick his daughter from school in the evening. But that never happened. It was while returning home from work that Baraza received news that there had been an accident at Lydia’s school.
“I was coming from work when I got the report that children at the school where my daughter went had ran over each other on the stairs and were seriously injured. I ran there hoping to find my daughter safe,” an emotional Baraza told ACI Africa Tuesday, January 4 adding that he learnt his daughter was among the dead pupils when he got to the school.
14 children reportedly died in as stampede as the children ran down stairs of their classrooms on their way home at the end of their classes. As at midnight Monday, two pupils were at the Kakamega Referral Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and 39 others were nursing injuries.
