Visit to her parents was the last family saw her

Four-year-old Diana Akoth is a happy child. She jumps up and down as she plays in Kachieng’ Bongu, Kasipul in Homa Bay County, a place she has always known as her home.

To baby Diana, her aunt Pamela Juma is the only mother she has known since her biological mother disappeared three years ago. Diana was only one year old then.

Pamela’s children are her siblings. Talking about her biological mother is like a story from another world. She believes her two siblings are her cousins.

She was separated from her siblings their mother Lucy Akinyi disappeared  from Githurai 45 estate in Nairobi where she lived with her husband, Tobias Mugah.

It was around 8am on June 15, 2012, when Akinyi, 26, who had gone to visit her parents in Umayi village, Homa Bay County, bade them farewell and embarked on her journey back to Nairobi.

Her mother, Mary Nyakwaka says that her daughter called later that day informing her she had reached her matrimonial home safely.

A week later, she received a phone call from Mugah who said he could not locate Akinyi; that she was missing.

According to Nyakwaka, Akinyi’s disappearance has been one long agonising nightmare for the family.

“She bid us farewell after a long visit in order to go back to her husband with whom they stayed in Nairobi. That was the last day I saw my daughter,” says a dejected Nyakwaka.

Her husband, Mugah, says she left the house without saying where she was heading to. At that point, they had just marked their fourth year in marriage.

The mother of three children is said to have left the house as if going to buy something at a nearby shop, leaving her children then aged between nine and one in the house.

Mugah says prior to her disappearance, there had been nothing unusual about her behaviour and neither did they have a disagreement.

“We had no bad blood between us. It still sounds like a dream that she just vanished never to come back again,” he says.

The family has searched for her in vain.

Not even a separate relentless search by her husband has proved successful.

Akinyi’s disappearance has since soured the relationship between her husband and her parents. Her children live with their mother’s relatives and the father is left alone to deal with his own emotional feelings over the disappearance of his wife.

Nyakwaka says they have exhausted the few resources they have in the search but none of it has borne fruits.

“Sometimes the two older children wail that they want their parents and it has been very tormenting,” she says.

She adds: “Although we have reported the matter to the police. I have been forced to walk from place to place in search of her. I lack sleep over my daughter. We have now resigned to fate because three years is such a long period.”

But Akinyi’s father, Cosmas Nyakwaka, says they have not lost hope of finding her and they believe she might be alive somewhere.

“When we first learnt about her disappearance, we called our relatives and asked around if they had any information about her whereabouts. That didn’t help and we became wearier after every phone call because they too were shocked. If she is alive, she should just resurface for our peace of mind,” he says.

They have one prayer; that anyone with information about their daughter’s whereabouts should come out and save them from their torment.

“It is not easy for a parent to eat, work or even sleep without knowing the whereabouts of one of her children,” says Cosmas.