Missing child reunites separated couple

By Vitalis Kimutai

With her hands folded, Gladys Chepng’eno Too sits pensively on a stool outside her house in Bomet town deep in thought.

Five months are over since her three and-a-half-year-old son went missing and she doesn’t know where to find him.

She would be preparing for his birthday at this time, but the family will not be celebrating the day for they are still searching for the lovely boy.

Ironically, the disappearance of the child brought back together his parents who had separated in 2008. For the last five months, the two have been together in the search for the boy.
Gideon Kipchirchir, who was then three and-a-half years old, went missing from his mother’s home at Ririk village in Bomet township on Sunday, September 6, last year.

Gideon Kipchirchir who has been missing for five months and (inset) his mother Gladys Chepng’eno Too. PHOTO: VITALIS KIMUTAI/STANDARD

Gladys, who is a mother of two, worked as a waiter at a pub in Bomet town.

No worries

"I took a break from my work place in the evening planning to prepare supper for the children, put them to bed and then return to work. However, when I went home I was told that my son had gone missing," Gladys recalls.
Initially, she says she did not take the disappearance seriously as she thought the child was within the neighbourhood.

The boy did not return home that night. In the morning, his mother got alarmed.
She started searching for him in the neighbourhood and when she couldn’t trace him, she reported the disappearance to the police.

"I rushed to the local police station in the morning to report, but the police only recorded the disappearance in the Occurrence Book (OB) just as a formality," she says.

Five months later, the police have not traced the missing child nor have they established how he disappeared.

His mother says on the fateful evening, Kipchirchir is said to have been playing with his friends including his elder sister Faith Chebet at an open ground outside their house.

Then a woman came and said she wanted to buy him sweets and went with him to nearby shops. Regrettably, the other children did not follow them.
His sister, Faith says that none of their playmates bothered to follow the boy and the woman to the shops, as they did not find it strange that someone had offered to buy sweets for one of them.

"We continued playing and did not bother at all until later in the evening when I returned home to find he had not been there ahead of me," says Faith.

"The last five months have been the most difficult in my entire life. I have spent all my money and energy in searching for my child in vain," says Gladys.

Fighting back tears, her eyes dart left and right then she gazes at the clear blue sky as if seeking divine intervention.
"I have spent more than Sh10,000 travelling to places including Kisii, Litein, Longisa, Silibwet, Kapkatet, Sotik and other areas in search of my son," she says wiping out a tear with her hand.
She says she has received several false leads from people who claimed to have spotted her son in various areas.
Out of desperation, the woman has sought intervention from soothsayers in Sotik, but it has only complicated the search efforts. They told the family that the boy was abducted by a woman from Bomet who sold him to another woman in Keumbu, Kisii District.
It was also claimed that the Kisii woman had twice tried to traffic the boy to Tanzania and has been transferring him to different locations to avoid detection.
But the claim has not been authenticated, as the parents have been unable to trace the woman to date because the information has been vague.
There were tell-tale signs that something was wrong when a stranger photographed the boy a week earlier without the knowledge or permission of the parents.

Strange picture

"A stranger took a photograph of the boy as he played with others, printed it and gave him a copy before disappearing," Beatrice Chelang’at, the boy’s aunt says.
The stranger did not charge a fee for the photograph, which the boy took home and handed over to his mother.

"We strongly suspect that the man who took the photograph had a connection with the boy’s disappearance," Chelang’at adds.
At the time of his disappearance, Kipchirchir who speaks Kiswahili and Kipsigis, was dressed in a yellow dotted suit, gumboots and a white muffin.