The family of a High School teacher from Lugari sub county has camped along the Kipkaren River as divers search for his body after he went missing ten days ago with a report indicating that he plunged himself into the river.
According to the deceased’s wife Josephine Kanini, her husband John Mukhwana Murunga a teacher at Nalutili secondary school in Bungoma county, left their home at Lumama village in Lugari sub location on Tuesday 11th August, 2020 but never returned.
She said her husband likes his liquor and she thought he had gone for a drinking spree as usual but she became worried after he failed to return home since he wasn’t used to sleeping outside.
She said she informed other family members from Kabras in Malava sub county who came and joined her to search for him in various brewing dens unsuccessfully.
After five days of searching, she said on Sunday they received information that her husband had been overheard by others at a drinking joint threatening to throw himself in the river.
Working on the information they managed to trace boys who allegedly witnessed the teacher plunging himself in the river.
“According to how the boys described him, it confirmed to us that he is the one, and that is how we knew that he had drowned,” said Kanini.
The young boys who were swimming in the river said when he reached the river bank, the teacher folded his trouser and jumped into the river and was swept away.
Their efforts to try and rescue him were futile as they were overpowered by the water current and left him to drown. However, they said they didn’t know him and that’s why they made no effort to contact his family.
Since Sunday the family has camped by the river searching for his body and the deceased mother Maria Kuvuyo has appealed to both the national and County government of Kakamega to help get expert divers to assist in the search of her son’s body.