A family in Gakarara, Kandara Constituency, Murang’a County, is engulfed in anguish following the disappearance of their 13-year-old daughter on Monday, September 18.
The family fears that Linet Wanjiru, who is a grade six pupil at Gakarara primary school, was abducted by unknown persons while at her father’s farm, where she had gone that evening to fetch bamboo trees for a school project.
Wanjiru’s father, John Kinyanjui, narrated that she had arrived from school and headed straight to the farm to source the bamboo trees.
“It was getting dark, heading to 7 p.m., when the family noted that she had stayed too long at the farm. We started calling out her name and looking for her,” he recalled.
He stated that they went to the farm and did not find Wanjiru, and that is when they alerted the police at Kandara Police Station, who have been assisting them to look for the girl.
“We found a piece of bamboo tree cut and the panga that was used to cut the bamboo, but Wanjiru was nowhere to be seen,” Kinyanjui said.
The following day, Tuesday, the family and concerned villagers embarked on a desperate search with no success.
The father stated that at 10 p.m. that Tuesday night, he was shocked when he found the innerwear she had worn when she went missing, placed in some strategic place for the family to find.
“I called my brother and my wife to inquire if the clothes were indeed the ones Wanjiru was wearing when she went missing,” he sobbed, saying he feared that the clothes indicated that his daughter had been sexually assaulted or even killed.
The girl’s mother, Lucy Njeri, pleaded with whoever could have kidnapped her daughter to kindly release her so that she could be reunited with her family.
On Wednesday, area residents who are helping the family search for the missing girl revealed they suspected the girl had been abducted and taken to a nearby forest that they say is the hub of all sorts of evil.
Jane Wangui, an elderly resident of the village, joined hands with Wanjiru’s mother and pleaded with whoever might have abducted the little girl to release her to the family unharmed, noting that the kidnappers seemed to know the girl’s family as they brought back some of her clothes.
By Purity Mugo
