Family conducts prayers for Kenyan driver who died in Uganda

The pain and anguish of losing a loved one remain intense two months later since the family of Daniel Kiberenge Obiro received news of his sudden death.

‎Obiro, a long-distance driver, embarked on a trip to Uganda and was expected back as usual by his wife, children, parents and friends. However, that didn't happen.

‎And from dawn to dusk, his family and friends agonise over Obiro and what befell him in a foreign land, miles away from their warm embrace.

‎His wife, Shamim Namuhenge, now left with the burden of taking care of their three children, cannot understand how his 33-year-old husband could have drowned in an abandoned dam in neighbouring Uganda without a trace.

‎She has been forced to seek solace in prayers staged intentionally for her husband. The payers have been going on at their Kamukunda village home in Kanduyi, Bungoma County.

‎ “My desire is for the government to intervene and help us find the body. The company my husband used to work for must be forced to take responsibility because my husband was the breadwinner and he has young children who need to go to school,” Namuhenge noted.

‎The family was informed that their kin drowned in a dam after a tanker plunged into Gulu Dam in Uganda. The family was informed of Obiro's death by phone. He was the driver of the ill-fated tanker.

‎Efforts to recover the body stalled because the family lacked the money required to facilitate the exercise and meet travel expenses to the scene, hundreds of miles away from their home in Kenya.

‎According to Jack and Risper Obiro, the deceased's parents, the prayers will help them accept the reality. 

"We urge the government to cooperate with the Ugandan authorities in helping recover the body so that we can accord our son a proper burial. It’s been two months since my son Kiberenge was reported to have drowned with the oil truck he was driving along the Malaba-Uganda route. I have been to various government offices seeking help, but no one has helped us and instead they told me the truck belongs to a Sudanese and I am not able to raise funds and follow up on the issue,” Obiro noted.

‎He added, “We were to perform some traditional rituals but since we are Christians, we just conducted a prayer service to strengthen us spiritually.  We were informed of his death via phone by the Uganda office when he drowned about two months ago.  They had not deployed equipment to help retrieve the body and we have yet to identify the owner of the truck. We wrote letters to various leaders and the government to help us retrieve the body, but we have yet to get any assistance,” he noted.

‎The deceased's mother called on well-wishers to intervene and help retrieve the body.

“We have used all the little resources we had in tracing the body but nothing has been found. Even if we just find his bones, we will appreciate," the mother noted.

‎Newton Azenga and Ian Obiro, the siblings, said they have never witnessed such an occurrence and called for help to ensure they get his body.

‎It is a tragedy that has stirred up emotions in the Maragoli sub-tribe of the Luhya community, where traditionally, when the body was not found, a broom or a banana stem had to be buried. However, religion is opposed to the belief.

‎They bury a banana shoot in place of a relative who is feared dead but whose body cannot be found for a proper burial, a tradition Rev John Salama Agevi, the overseer of PAG Bungoma, says has been overtaken by religion.

‎"We have been conducting prayers and we don’t know if he’s dead or if he’s still alive.  We have been here before and the family was told to find a banana stem to bury, but we told the family that if traditions are followed, we will not attend the service ceremony at the PAG church. And we cannot go against doctrine, traditions have no space in the church,” Agevi noted.