A family in Nakuru’s Rhonda Estate is spending sleepless nights after their three-year-old child went missing during a crusade at Kiwanja Mazembu on September 8, 2016.
According to Brighton Kimani’s mother, Anne Wambui, the little boy followed his friends to go see a local pastor preach at the crusade that was just 300 metres from their house.
“It was about 1pm and he had just finished taking his lunch when he left. I expected him to come back home at about 4pm for a snack before going back to play,” said the 24-year-old.
She said it was not the first time her son had gone out to play, but this time round he stayed until 6pm without coming home which got her concerned.
“Kimani usually goes to play with his friends from time to time, but he usually ensures that he comes home for meals in between and then goes back to playing,” she said.
The tearful mother narrated to us that on the fateful day, she saw her son’s friends in the compound, at around 6pm, and questioned them on the whereabouts of her son and they told her that they had left him at the crusade.
She rushed to the crusade but found a nearly empty ground with just the organisers who were dismantling their sound machines and placing them inside a waiting lorry.
“I requested the organisers, who had a public address system, to announce his name and say he was lost but no one came forward to bring him,” she says.
Kimani’s father Peter Njoroge, 36, said they later went from door to door in search of their son but no one in the neighbourhood had seen him.
They later reported the matter at Kaptembwo Police Station and at the chief’s post in Kaptembwo even as they continued looking for him.
Njoroge said his son loved to walk around but he was disciplined enough to come home at exactly 6pm.
“Kimani knew I was strict on timing and so immediately it hit 6pm, he would stop playing and come home to take a bath and have his dinner,” Njoroge said.
He added that after the frantic futile search they went to the children’s home at Bondeni Nakuru and at the remand centre in Nakuru where they presented his photograph but the authorities said they had not received him.
The desperate father said he suspects his son might have been kidnapped, saying cases of children being abducted in the area have been on the rise.
“While we were searching for our son at the Kiwanja Mazembu grounds, we met another couple who told us their two children had also disappeared during the crusade,” he said.
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According to Njoroge, the young Kimani knew his way around their neighbourhood and it was not easy for him to get lost.
He noted that his neighbours also know Kimani well saying he is certain if they saw him roaming around they would have brought him home.
The couple, who both depend on casual jobs for their upkeep, are now pleading with the public to help them find their only child who they said is their source of happiness and who gives them a reason to keep going.
“Anyone with information on our son’s whereabouts should forward the same to us and we shall indeed appreciate,” said the desperate parents.
The boy was dressed in a pink overall at the time of his disappearance.
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