Kapkimo residents in Baringo North are yet to come to terms with the death of a Form Three girl whose body was found dangling from a tree outside her parents' home on Wednesday morning.
Her mother said on Thursday that the 15-year-old Lucy Kimuge feared arrest and prosecution after she allegedly killed her four-month-old child.
The Kapkimo Day Secondary School student was also frustrated after falling out with the father of her child.
“On Monday, she woke up early in the morning, took away her child and went out quietly only to come back barely an hour later without the child,” mother Rael Kandie said.
She lied to her parents that she had taken the child to its father in Barwessa. The body of the child – identified as Roy Koech – was later found in a shallow grave a few metres from the homestead.
On Tuesday, Kelio Location chief Joseph Cheraste and some village elders went to the school to find from the girl what had happened to her child.
“The school advised them to interrogate her at home in the evening,” Baringo North Education officer Kiprono Langat said.
They did not manage to do so as her body was found hanging from a tree on Wednesday morning.
The mother is convinced that her daughter would not have committed suicide had the school allowed the chief and the elders to arrest and lock her up after the interrogation.
She said Kimuge probably feared to be arrested, questioned and jailed for killing her child.
“Had they have arrested her immediately in school she could have had no time to think about killing herself,” Kandie said.
She described the girl as humble, hardworking and generous.
Like the mother, sub-county police commander Fredrick Odinga speculated that the girl killed herself due to frustration and fear of arrest after killing and burying her child.
The father, Charles Chelimo, said Kibuge had left school last September to give birth. She had resumed her studies last week.
Baringo North has lately had several suicide cases. An ex-Kenya Defence Forces soldier committed suicide on the eve of Jamhuri day last year.
Days earlier, Bossei Day Secondary School deputy headteacher Norah Koech committed suicide in her house two weeks after the death of the principal.
County police commander Robinson Ndiwa was concerned by the high rate of suicide in the area, noting that more than 20 people had killed themselves since January last year.
