Girl dies after jumping off a 100-foot waterfall in Nyeri

The identity of a teenage girl who on Monday committed suicide by jumping off a waterfall in Muruguru, Nyeri County is yet to be known.

The girl, believed to be aged between 15 and 17 years, jumped off the Sagana Falls for unknown reasons.

Witnesses said that she was crying before she jumped over the more than 100-foot waterfall, hitting rocks at the bottom and plunged into a 70-foot-deep pool.

It is, however, unclear why the girl took her own life.

Police told the Nation that the girl’s identity remains a mystery as nobody in the area recognised her after the body was pulled out of River Gura.

Nyeri Central OCPD Masai Makau said residents said they did not know her as she had never been seen around the falls before.

“Once we pulled out the body, we let the locals check if anyone knew her but nobody could identify her,” said Mr Makau.

Police also revealed that the girl had deleted all the content from her phone and dumped it in a bush in what appears to be efforts to try and make it hard for her family to trace her.

“It is odd that she deleted all numbers and messages but we think she did not want her family to know what she had done,” said the OCPD.

TRIED TO DISSUADE HER

Mr Peterson Wambugu, who had tried to stop her from taking her life, said that she had been sitting alone on a bridge near the falls and appeared to be chatting with someone through text messaging.

He said that she also made a phone call to someone she referred to as her mother.

“She told her to go and collect her school uniform but I did not get where she schooled,” said Mr Wambugu.

Mr Wambugu said that he had also tried talking with the girl who told him that her name was Shiko.

“She did not seem interested in chatting with me so I left her sitting on the bridge to go fetch water,” he said.

He recounted that when he came back to the bridge, the girl was walking towards the edge of the waterfall crying.

Mr Wambugu said that he tried to warn the girl that the area is dangerous but she continued walking, telling him not to stop her.

“She told me to let her do what she had already planned,” he said.

He ran towards her and held her hand trying to pull her away from the edge but she put up a fight and a struggle ensued.

Another resident who was passing by also tried pulling the two away but it was too late as the girl fought off the two men and jumped to her death.

“We tried saving her but she was too strong and we were forced to let her go since we would all have fallen [into the wataer],” said Mr Crispus Mugambi, the other rescuer.

Efforts to retrieve the body were delayed for over three hours as locals declined to do the job saying that it was too risky.

Volunteers from the Kenya Red Cross together with fire fighters braved themselves for the delicate mission.