Mwingi school opens with mourning of teacher killed in road crash

A school in Kitui is mourning the death of a teacher in a road accident on Sunday.

Students of St Augustine Mwingi School returned to school on Tuesday to start the new term without one of their teachers.

The Star has established that teacher Telesia Mumbe and her two young sons were among five people who perished in a grisly road accident involving a 14-seater matatu and a lorry on Nairobi-Mombasa road.

The Sunday afternoon accident occurred between Voi and Mtito Andei in Makueni county. Kibwezi South subcounty police commander George Kashmir said among the dead was the matatu driver and one other person.

He said the matatu, which was coming from Mombasa, was destined for Nuu in Kitui county. It collided head-on with a lorry that was heading in the opposite direction. 

When the Star visited the Catholic church-sponsored school on Tuesday morning, senior teacher Ernest Muthui said the school fraternity is in shock for losing the teacher.

“The entire school community is in shock. I do not know what to tell you because our principal has not arrived. He has been busy attending to matters related to the death of the teacher and her children,” Muthui said.

Muthui said Mumbe taught Kiswahili and Christian Religious Education. He said she was hardly a year old at the school.

“It is sad for us to have lost the young teacher and her children. She was an absolutely social and friendly person who did not have problems interacting with other people. She was very hard working and result-oriented,” the senior teacher said.

Muthui said the teacher, who lived in Mwingi with her two children, usually travelled to Mombasa where her husband works during the school holidays.

He said she was travelling back to Mwingi when tragedy struck.

Edited by A.N