January curse for displaced

• Families in refugee camps jolted once more, when they lose loved ones in fire

At the Good Hope camp for people displaced in post-election violence last year, relatives mourning yet another January disaster were in despair, saying the tragedies were too much for them.

Simon Ngige, 24

When this year started, Simon Ngige thought he could forget the tribulations he went through last year after his family was uprooted from its Keringet farm during the violence.

Now, he is reeling from shock yet again after he lost his wife and mother-in-law in the tanker fire, just two kilometres from the camp, near Kibunja trading centre.

He is grappling with how he will bring up his four children.

“I do menial jobs and it is now even harder to take care of my children,” he said.

On Monday, Mr Ngige broke down as he narrated to the Daily Nation how his wife was swallowed up by flames in the trench where the oil tanker had fallen.

When news reached his family that the lorry had rolled, he rushed to the scene with his brother, wife, mother-in-law and a friend who had visited them.

“All of us had 20-litre jerry cans, apart from my mother-in-law who stood on the tarmac watching,” said Mr Ngige.

His wife was in the trench, the fuel up to her knees.

“I feared the fuel could irritate my skin and drew it from the side of the trench,” said Mr Ngige.

He explains why it was difficult for victims to escape: “Most of them were dizzy from inhaling the fuel fumes. My wife was swept away by the burning oil as I shouted for help,” he said, adding that his mother-in-law was overtaken by the flames as she ran away.

Mr Ngige’s brother is nursing serious burns at Kenyatta National Hospital.

Hannah Wangari, 5, and Damaris Wanjugu, 3

The girls have not seen their mother for four days. Ms Rebecca Wangui died in the fire as she scooped fuel. She had left her daughters with a neighbour to join other women who ran towards the fallen lorry.

On Monday evening, the two children were clinging to their grandmother’s kanga as neighbours at the Good Hope IDP camp consoled her.

“They cry every time they see visitors at their tent,” said Ms Wangui’s younger brother, Mr Simon Mwai.

He is now left with the task of taking care of the girls because their grandmother is getting weaker by the day.

Samuel Yegon, 47

He lost two brothers, Peter and Benard Kosgey. The two men were off duty from the China Road and Bridges Construction Company, the firm that is recarpeting the Nakuru-Eldoret highway.

On the fateful day, Benard rushed home at Borop village and took a 20-litre jerry can. He did not speak to his mother, and neither did she ask where he was going.

By Monday, Mr Yegon was yet to come to terms with how the family will take care of his brother Peter’s two children.

“We have not had any family meeting to discuss this tragedy,” said the teacher at Nguzu Primary School.

As the eldest in the family, Mr Yegon has been representing the family in meetings to see if all those who died could be buried in a mass grave.

Julius Chelule, 29

The farmer at Borop village is yet to come to terms with the deaths of his two uncles and a cousin. His uncles Peter Kebenei and Nixon Langat were close to the lorry when it burst into flames.

His cousin Gedion Chemosi was a pupil at Kapsorok Primary School.

Another of his nephews, 15-year-old Benard Kipkemoi was seriously burned and is fighting for his life at the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi.

“We cannot afford to lose another life in this small family,” he added.