Detectives
are investigating a tragic incident in which a 35-year-old woman allegedly
killed her two young children before burying them in a shallow grave and later
taking her own life in the Todonyang area, Turkana County.
Police
said the incident occurred in the Nachukui area on Sunday, October 26, 2025.
The woman, identified as Hellen Akai, is said to have strangled her two sons, aged four and two, before burying them in a shallow grave near her home. According to police, she was alone with the children at the time.
Late in the night, she
dug the shallow grave and buried their bodies.
She
later hanged herself inside her house. Her body was discovered hanging from the
roof truss with a rope around her neck, police said.
The motive for the horrific act was not immediately established.
Police were alerted to the incident several hours later by neighbors, who had grown concerned after noticing the family’s unusual silence.
The children had not been seen playing
as they normally did, and Akai had not been spotted throughout the day.
Upon
receiving the report, police officers visited the scene, exhumed the children’s
bodies, and moved them together with their mother’s remains to the mortuary for
postmortem examinations.
Neighbors told police the woman had not shown any visible signs of distress or instability prior to the tragedy.
Investigations are ongoing to determine what
may have driven her to commit the act.
Authorities
say such family-related murder-suicide cases have been on the rise, sparking
concern among both police and mental health experts.
Just last week, a similar tragedy occurred in Suswa, Narok County, where a man identified as Nahashon Mbogo poisoned and killed his two daughters, aged six and four, before dying by suicide.
Police said Mbogo fed the children a toxic
substance identified as redcat poison, laid their bodies on a bed, and later
hanged himself
The
motive for that incident also remains unclear.
Police
statistics indicate that up to five such cases are reported daily across the
country — most involving men.
According to the World Health Organization, contributing factors include unemployment, grief, academic failure, legal or financial challenges, substance abuse, and mental health disorders such as depression and bipolar disorder.
The government says
efforts are ongoing to address this worrying trend.
