Four months later, family still hopes for safe return of their mother

Dorina Ashianga Owate, disappeared this year on September 8.[Edward Kiplimo,Standard]

Two years ago, when Dorina Ashianga Owate was diagnosed with diabetes and high blood pressure, the doctor warned her family of the challenges that come with the condition, including the possibility of memory loss. Despite the diagnosis, Dorina was able to go on with her life as usual, a factor that led her children to believe that their 54-year-old mother was all right.

On September 8 this year, Owate innocently left to fetch water at a water point near her house in Ongata Rongai, but she never came back home. The last person to see her was a child who was coming from school, who said that he saw Ongate with a bucket, walking towards the water point along Gataka Road in Ongata Rongai. The family does not know whether Owate reached the watering point or not.

The search

Before she left, Owate lived alone in her house, but on the same plot as her brother, who, after failing to hear from her for three days, notified her children of her disappearance. The distraught children, who work outside Nairobi, say they have been on an intense search for their mother since September, but are yet to find her.

“We have been to all hospitals, mortuaries and police stations in Nairobi, Kiambu and Kajiado, but we cannot find her,” says Owate’s deeply distressed son Charles Kipsang.

The family says they have even extended the search efforts to their rural home but have not found the woman there either. The troubled Kipsang says the family has received two calls from people who claimed to have spotted women similar in appearance to their mother in Lang’ata and Baba Dogo.

Public appeal

Anxious and heavy with expectation, Kipsang went to see if any the two women was his mother but unfortunately, none of them was. The family suspects that she might have lost her memory when she left to fetch water, prompting her to forget her way home.

When Owate vanished, she was wearing a black skirt dotted white, with a checked maroon blouse. She also had short hair and a slim figure at the time she disappeared.

The family now appeals for leads from anyone who might have spotted Owate, as they remain optimistic that they will see their mother once again. Her children can be reached on 0724115849, 0734312254, 0712554247 or 0724930946.