Family Appeals for Help to Retrieve the body of their 12-year old Daughter Swept by Floods

The Kenya Red Cross has joined search for the body of a 12 -year old girl, Ashly Atika, who was swept away by floods In Kangemi, Nairobi County two weeks ago.

The family of the young girl is still keeping vigil at Warugu river bank waiting for the recovery of the body for burial.

According to residents the river became swollen breaking its banks after the rainfall experienced in the last two weeks

On the day of the incidence that occurred on March 23, the water from the river broke the banks forcing its way into Ashly’s house.

Woken up brutally by the unfolding event her mother Esther Monyenye held tightly onto her daughter desperately trying to find a way out to safety.

‘When I woke up and looked up, I say the water had reached at the window level, we started panicking and my child was jumping on the table and I held on to her tightly because she wanted to go outside but there was too much water on the outside,’ said Ashly’s mother.

As she was trying to find her way out into safety, she hang on a nearby tree when large amounts of water hit against them prompting her to let go of her daughter who was quickly washed away.

‘I was holding onto the tree with one hand and then the other I was holding my daughter, then large amounts of water hit against us  prompting me to let her go,’ said the distraught mother

It has been two weeks of agony for this family who says they have tried everything possible to retrieve her body without success.

‘We have searched for the body together with my neighbors and even the Red Cross team came in but we haven’t been successful,’ said Daniel Atika the girl’s father.

For four day the Red Cross team has been on location scarring the banks for any trace of Ashly’s body and are now expanding their search area.

The search team has sent out an alert to communities living along Nairobi River all the way to Kilimambogo where they believe the body could have been washed to.

‘We will activate an alert for residents living on the banks of the river in the downstream, in Ruai going onwards to 14 Fall,’ said one of the divers.

The family is now seeking refuge in relatives’ houses as they await her body to be found. They are calling upon the government to help them recover the body so they can arrange for her burial.