Man commits suicide over daughter’s ‘cut’

• He’d told elders he didn’t have enough animals to host the circumcision

A 55-year-old man has committed suicide after his underage daughter was circumcised against his wish. 

Mr Joseph Kibiwot Chumwar used a rope to hang himself in Endo Kapen Location in Marakwet East District.

Area chief William Suter said the body of the man was found dangling from a tree. There was no suicide note.

Teach lesson

Grief-stricken relatives said that Mr Chumwar had threatened to take unspecified action to teach a lesson to the people who forcefully circumcised his 12-year-old daughter.

“No one suspected that he was going to hang himself when he took a rope and headed for the animals’ pen,” his brother told the Nation.  

The father of seven was against the circumcision of his children and had given his reasons to elders. 

He told them that he did not have enough animals and coupled with this year’s poor harvest, there was hardly enough to from which to host the ceremony and feed his family.

Rite’s costs

Mr Chumwar is also said to have told the elders that with three children in secondary school, he could not afford the costs of the rite.

But his daughter, who sat this year’s KCPE exams, was allegedly accosted and circumcised, on instructions of the elders.

Mr Chumwar is said to have sent the 12-year-old’s elder sister to visit relatives so that she could escape the ‘cut’.

Relatives have started burial arrangements.