A bizarre death incident has shocked the Rongo University fraternity after the abrupt disappearance of a student who was living at a hostel next to the institution.
The death discovered today morning rocked the Migori-based institution as the charred body was pulled out deep in a nearby borehole three days after a frantic search for the student.
According to his peers at the institution who spoke to Education News, the deceased, known as Emmanuel Nyamweya, was studying together with his elder brother, who is also a student at the same college, on Sunday last week before his sudden disappearance.
The eyewitnesses claimed that the brothers misunderstood over an undisclosed matter before Emmanuel, a first-year student, vanished.
But when confronted by fellow students and neighbours, his unshaken suspect brother defended himself, alleging that he went to sleep after leaving his sibling studying alone in the hostel’s sitting room.
“I have also been in shock over his sudden disappearance. It is true we were studying with him till late in the night and I excused myself to go and sleep but like everybody else I am dumbfounded by the sudden turn of events. Why should I kill my blood, brother?” He vociferously shielded himself.
The irate students could have none of his arguments and wanted to launch him, but the police arrived just in time to save him from possible danger.
The neighbour who had discovered the body in the well informed the police about the bothersome incident, who immediately took the body to Migori Teaching and Referral Hospital Mortuary for preservation and possible postmortem pending investigations.
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Rongo University Community and students asked the police to arrest the elder brother of the deceased as the first suspect and hold him accountable for his sibling’s death.
“How could he sleep comfortably until morning without bothering about his brother’s whereabouts?” Asked Paul Oduor, a college student.
Efforts to get Rongo University Vice Chancellor Prof Samuel Gudu to comment on the matter did not yield results as he could not be reached by phone at the time.
Following this death, many parents are beginning to get concerned about the safety of their children living at hostels around local universities.
They claimed that a series of mysterious deaths of students had hit the university in the recent past and called on the Government to investigate the goings-on at the external facilities housing learners.
The parents narrated how one university student who hailed from Bomachoge Borabu in Kisii County died mysteriously in February this year.
The Embu University student had gone missing for days, and his body was found decomposing in a swamp.
Earlier last week, two Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) students drowned as they went swimming at a neighbouring dam outside the university.
Stunned parents who talked to Education News in Rongo town on Wednesday this week asked leaders to convene an urgent meeting on the way forward over these suspicious deaths and assure the public that such worrying trends are arrested.
By Enock Okong’o
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