By Amoto Ndiewo
It is now emerging that the grade three boy who recently drowned in Tana River was fishing and not chasing a water bottle as earlier reported.
According to his friends, the late Evans Nabora Mutemi drowned in Tana River while they were fishing near Club Joyma in Mororo shantytown, Bengal Sub-county.
Mohamed Dadho, his classmate in Atata Primary School, has disclosed that the group of four boys were fishing with hooks by the river banks.
“The four of us were standing on the River banks and as Nabora moved to get a better position, he slipped into the raging waters of River Tana. Since none of us could swim, there was no way we could have helped him but to shout for help,’’ said the classmate.
The three boys went shouting and running along the river banks urging him to wade off the strong stream towards the riverbank where he would get help, but the tide was just too strong for the minor to overcome.
According to Nabora’s other friends, they preferred that side of the river as it was a good catchment area for fish.
Adding insult to injury, the late boy’s mother had passed on recently while his father, Pastor James Mutemi had remarried.
“Sadly, the step mother did not care much for her step son, thus forcing the boy to resort to side hustles to earn a meal,’’ said Florence Musomba, their neighbour.
She added that due to the suffering the boy was undergoing, his maternal aunts who had got wind of his tribulations recently came for him but he blatantly declined to accompany her to Ukasi, his mothers birthplace.
Area Senior Assistant Chief, Mohamed Lokha, noted that due to lack of parental care and the biting poverty, many children have resorted to truancy, begging, fishing, child labour and petty crime to make ends meet.
Lokha therefore warned parents that when school reopens, he is going to lay and leash a crackdown on non-school going children in the riverine shantytown.
“Under my watch, I cannot allow young children remain at home to engage in crime and illegal activities,’’ cautioned an angry Lokha.
On the same note, the senior assistant chief has warned school going students to desist from joining the lawless Kayole criminal gang engaging in petty crime.
