According to Wanjiru, the 37-year-old was the family’s sole bread winner and he used to do casual work and small businesses to meet his young family’s needs.
When we arrive at the homestead, we found four of the couple’s four children seated outside the veranda of their mud-walled two bedroom house.
They are going through the family album and seemed captivated by their father’s photo.
The elder daughter breaks the silence: “Our father is so good. I miss him so much. I yearn to see him walk into the homestead carrying gifts for us like he used to,” she says while the other children listen keenly to her.
The younger child starts crying asking to hold her father’s photo and her cry attracts their mother who looks weak and emotionally spent. She picks up the pictures as she calms him.
“Son, let me keep the pictures of our dad. We shall review them in the evening,” she says and tells us it has been difficult to tell the young ones that their father is missing.
Recounting the last moments she spent with John on August 8, 2015, Wanjiru says he left the house at around 5pm and went to drive away baboons that were destroying their maize crop. This was at their farm which is located just a few meters from the Lake Nakuru National Park.
A few minutes later, Wanjiru claims she heard three gunshots accompanied by screams and when he did not return, she alerted family and friends who immediately launched a search mission. The family then reported the incident to Naishi Police post where she says officers were reluctant to give a helping hand and instead told her to file the case in court.
Since then, life has taken a rather cruel turn for the woman who is now unable to take care of her young children aged between two and 12 years and the baboons are making things even more difficult.
“Farming is the main economic activity but baboons are a major nuisance. They have forced me to reduce the number of farming acres from nine and a half to just one acre. They stray from the park and destroy all crops on the farm and even feed on our poultry,” she says.
Wanjiru also believes her husband might have gone missing at the hands of Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) officers.
Before the bullets were heard, she claims a group of KWS officers, driving in a land-cruiser, were spotted near her homestead interrogating youths if they had seen anyone stray into the park.
“Where else could my husband have disappeared to in broad daylight? He left to chase baboons and that was the last I saw him. If they killed him, let them give me his body,” she says.
However, Central Rift KWS Director George Osuri has dismissed the allegations saying nobody was arrested or killed at the park.
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Osuri says he is aware of the allegations, since the issue was brought to his attention, adding that his office advised the complainants to launch a case with police officers for investigations.
“The complainants were referred to police who conduct investigations, KWS did not carry out investigations because none of her officers were involved,” he says.
Osuri however, questions how the missing man strayed into the park after allegedly chasing the baboons.
“Yes there are claims of baboons straying into the farms but it is not clear how someone can chase the animals away and at the same time stray into the park,” he says.
The family has gone to various health facilities and mortuaries but are yet to trace their kin. While no answers are forthcoming, Wanjiru and her children are left with heavy, anxious hearts.
“I loved my husband very much and his disappearance is a blow to me. I cry for him but hide my tears from the children and it is hard to take when they come home from school each day and ask whether their father is back. I pray for his return, we need him here,” says the distraught woman.
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