Long week, days and nights as anxious families hold on to fading hope

Nakuru county residents lighting candles at Nyayo garden in Nakuru town on Janury 22,2016 in respect to the fallen KDF soldiers who were killed in Somalia by Al shabaab Militia,The ven was organized by a group of youth known has Team Huslers .PHOTO:KIPSANG JOSEPH

It has been 10 days of grief and fading hope as families of Kenya Defence Forces troops wait for word on the whereabouts of their loved ones. These families have endured long nights and every new day brings with it a fresh round of pain as mothers and fathers, wives and children yearn to know the fate of their sons, husbands and fathers. It is the same story for other close relatives, friends and colleagues of soldiers who had been deployed to El Adde in southern Somalia.

Be it in their little huts in far-flung villages or in their imposing living rooms in major cities, the families are craving after every piece of information for the slightest clue on the fate of their loved ones. But very little of this information seems to come through. The suffering of this kind can neither be transferred nor its magnitude fully appreciated by others. As the rest of Kenyans pray, comfort and stand in solidarity with them, these families must, at the end of the day, come to terms with their loss.