Family agony as mentally ill kin is missing

Portrait of Perez Joy Adhiambo, a mentally ill woman who was abducted from their Kogony home in Kisumu West on October 25. [Kevine Omollo/Standard]

A family in Kisumu West is appealing for help to find their missing relative who has a mental illness.

Bernard Nyadida said his 35-year-old sister, Perez Joy Adhiambo, was picked from their house by an unknown woman last Friday.

Mr Nyadida, who works in Yala town, said he left the house at 7am on the fateful day.

“Since I had some fieldwork, I left earlier than usual. I left my wife behind as she was also preparing to leave,” he said, adding that his wife left by 8.30am.

The brother said this was common practice in the 18 years he had hosted Adhiambo after they lost their parents.

But when he returned home at 1pm, Nyadida said he found the front door ajar and loud music playing on the radio.

“I checked the house and called her name but there was no response. I went to a neighbour's house where she spends time chatting with friends but she was not there,” he said.

Nyadida returned to the house and inspected Adhiambo’s bedroom carefully. He realised her clothes and shoes were missing.

He extended his search outside the house, walking to the lakeshore and then to the main road.

As he made further inquiries, a shopkeeper said he had seen Adhiambo in the company of a tall, dark woman.

The two women, the trader told Nyadida, appeared to be on friendly terms as they walked towards the Kisumu-Busia road.

Nyadida reported the matter to Kogony Police Station and officers took up the search that is yet to bear fruit.

The brother said Adhiambo is the third child in a family of seven and she was diagnosed with a mental illness at the age of five.

“Adhiambo is calm and nobody would realise she has a mental problem unless you engage her in speech and realises some of her utterances are incoherent,” he said.

Nyadida said the family suspected that someone well known to them had lured Adhiambo away to perhaps work as a house-help.