Banana woman dealt death blow by assailants soldiers on

September 7 was going to be Faith Mbeyu's wedding day. But that day passed without ceremony, as she lay in hospital with a broken skull. On the evening of Monday, March 25, she was attacked by unknown

people who bashed in her head with a blunt object. She has not left hospital since.

After the assault in which her attackers left her for dead, Faith had to undergo surgery, and one medic at the operation says the skull had cracked "like a pot." They picked the broken bones piece by piece in an

operation led by neurosurgeon Alex Njiru, which took almost eight hours.

Now the right side of Faith’s head is without a skull, "soft as a cheek," according to the nurse caring for her. Her brain is unprotected.

Six months after the attack that forever changed a family, Faith is still at the Bellevue Hospital in Nairobi's South C, where she was rushed from the Karuri Dispensary, four hours after the brutal attack. She stayed in

the intensive care unit for three months, then she was transferred to a general ward, where she has been undergoing physiotherapy.

She still cannot speak, and she is fed intravenously.

She just screams whenever she sees her fiancé Boniface Mwangi and her sister Grace Njoki, perhaps exasperated that she cannot talk to them. Njoki just graduated from Machakos University with a first-class degree

in fashion and design, an education, she says in tears, which Faith funded. Never mind that Faith is only 25 years old. Faith also earned a first-class degree in environmental science at Karatina University.

LOVING PERSON

“Faith is a very loving person, very calm, very collected, very smart … yes, she is a very happy person,” says the sister.

Boniface recalls how he met her. It was June 2016 at a friend’s wedding in Murang’a. During the church service, he was bored so he thought of leaving. But, as often happens in public gatherings, people with extra

space in their cars are asked to help ferry people who might lack transport.

“I gave her a lift from the church to the reception venue,” he says, as he adjusts the rims of his glasses self-consciously. “We started talking, and she was interesting and brilliant,” he says.

He then decided that he was going to marry her. They started dating, got engaged and planned a wedding for September 7, 2019. But when it rains it pours. On what was supposed to be one of the happiest days of

her life, Faith was still fighting for her life at the hospital, probably oblivious to the fact that her big day had come. Coincidentally, the would-be groom was also admitted to another hospital not far away from South

C, undergoing treatment for an infection he suspects to have caught from his many hospital visits.

By the time of the attack, Faith lived in Banana with her aunt. On the fateful day, she was returning home from work when she was attacked by an assailant or assailants, who clobbered her on the head. She had

seen Boniface that morning, after he dropped her at her workplace along Mombasa road. They had spent the past weekend together, planning an imminent visit by Boniface and his parents to her home, to fulfil some

of the cultural requirements in preparation for their wedding.

Boniface, 28, who attends the Presbyterian Church of East Africa, Kikuyu Township, says he had skipped church service that Sunday and “spent the whole day talking” with his fiancée.

On Monday evening, he called Faith at about 7pm and she did not pick up. He was not aware that a few kilometres away in Banana, Faith was writhing in pain and lying in a pool of blood and choking from her own

vomit.

LEFT FOR DEAD

“The attackers left her for the dead,” says Esther Muita, Faith's neighbour and friend. “I had passed the same route 10 minutes earlier, and this could have been me.”

Banana is one of those sleepy neighbourhoods, caught between urbanity and rusticity. It is neighboured by farming villages. To many of the residents who work in the city centre, Westlands or Gigiri, Banana is the

bedroom. There are small businesses, and farmers bring their produce from the villages. The residents now say that the tranquillity that attracted a majority of the residents to the area has since been shattered by

crime.

“Of late, crime has become very prevalent in Banana,” says Esther.

But Faith's case is baffling. Her carers at Bellevue, Nashon Okumu, a nurse, and clinical officer Abdiharim Abdullah believe that her assailant intended to deal her a death blow, a suspicion hard to ignore, as nothing

was stolen from her.

When she was found, she still had her bag, money and mobile phone. She was rushed to Karuri Dispensary, where she received first aid, with the staff there insisting that she needed specialised care. It was not until

four hours later that her family and well-wishers found an ambulance which took her to Bellevue.

Still baffling is the fact that her assailant has never been identified.

“We reported the case to the police,” says Boniface, “but there have been no arrests, no information on what might have happened. We demand answers.”

Boniface is calling on the police to investigate Faith's case and arrest the person or people responsible for the attack.

ALWAYS A SURVIVOR

Faith has always been a survivor. Not many people expected her to survive the severe injuries, but she has defied all odds. Says nurse Okumu: “With physiotherapy, we hope that she will be able to walk and talk

again soon. We are happy that she is recovering well, and her crying out loud is a sign that she is on the way to recovery.”

But as she heals, her medical bill accumulates. She has been discharged, but she cannot leave the hospital until the bill of Sh3.5million is settled. The family has already paid Sh2.9 million, which they raised from

themselves and well-wishers.

The Kikuyu PCEA Township church has organised for a harambee to raise the Sh3.5 million to pay the bill and hopefully realise more to help her afford care at home. The church has opened paybill number, 833054,

account name Faith, through which the funds can be channelled.