When your husband is a KDF soldier: Wives speak out

Maurine Auma,wife to the deceased KDF Soldier Joseph Awuor Bonyo who died in the line of duty in Somalia weep as she is interviewed by The Standard,remembering her life with the deceased and the ordeal she is going through at the moment

Maureen Auma, 30, is busy taking her children through school assignments at Kiratina estate in the outskirts of Nakuru town. Her youngest child Samuel Owour, 5, rushes outside to play with his friends but comes back a few minutes later crying. He has been beaten by a playmate and vows to tell his father about it when he returns.

 “Nitaambia daddy akikuja, nitaambia (I will tell my daddy when he comes back),” he says amid sobs. Auma, in deep thought, has no words to console her son, because the father he is talking about, Joseph Owour Bonyo, was among the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) soldiers who died during the El-Adde attack in January last year. The mother of two, who is yet to come to terms with the death of her husband, expressed her fears of bringing her son to terms with his father’s death. “My son is not aware of his father’s death and I am not ready to inform him because he is too young to understand,” the teary eyed widow told The Standard team during a visit to her house.