David Mugonyi
29 June 2008
Nairobi — Six months later, they still bear the wounds inflicted on them in January when post-election violence broke out. Nor have they forgotten the inferno in the Assemblies of God Church in Kiambaa.
This is the story of Mary Wahito, 16, Mercy Wanjiru, 14, Anthony Njoroge, 11, and Mrs Mary Macharia, 38 -- all victims of the burning of the church in Eldoret, the single-most chilling and ugliest event in the two months of violence that erupted following the announcement of the presidential election results last December 30. At least 1,200 people were killed, 350,000 were displaced, and property worth Sh30 billion destroyed.
Extent of burns
The extent of the burns the four victims suffered is a testimony to the ferocity of the petrol-fed fire. Mrs Macharia says it was a miracle that most of the 200-plus women and children who had sought refuge in the church from marauding gangs survived. Thirty-five people died.
"I can't remember clearly how most of us escaped, but I think it was God's plan. Most of the children jumped through the windows as the church walls were caving in on us," she said.
The four burn victims, as well as Wahito's four-year-old niece Jedidah Kisia who had been strapped on her back and who has recovered from minor burns, now face an additional dilemma: they have nowhere to go.
Reconstructive surgeries
The four survived the inferno but half a year later are still recuperating in hospital as debate rages over whether or not to grant amnesty to perpetrators of the violence, including those who piled mattresses around the church, doused them in petrol and set fire to the mud-walled structure.
They are not sure when they will fully recover. Neither are they sure whether the use of their severely burnt limbs will be restored. The three school-going children have lost the use of their hands, which expensive reconstructive surgery is required to restore.
Above all, they are not sure about where they will go once they leave hospital. But they will not return to Eldoret, their birthplace and a place they called home before the violence.
And they do not want to talk about hospital bills that run close to Sh200, 000 each since they were admitted to Kijabe Mission Hospital in early May. This is in addition to bills incurred at Eldoret's Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital where they were initially admitted.
Mrs Macharia says the church was thought to be the safest place to seek refuge when rampaging youths descended on Kiambaa village, destroying property and attacking anyone in sight.
"It was our third day at the church after we were told to vacate the area or be attacked," said Wahito, who thought she would sit her Kenya Certificate of Primary Education examination later this year.
Safest place
During those three days, their parents went home to prepare food for the children and returned in the evening to spend the night at the place they considered to be the safest. But there was no more refuge on January 1.
"We heard noise from a distance and we were told to run into the church. But before we got there some of the elderly people were slashed with machetes or stoned to death by the youths," said Wanjiru, who sleeps next to Wahito.
The armed raiders stacked the highly inflammable foam mattresses around the church, doused them in petrol and lit them.
"It was an inferno! I thank God I'm still alive," Wahito said. The intensity of the fire forced her to drop Jedidah, but she cannot remember clearly how she survived nor how Jedidah escaped with just minor burns.
"When the building was about to collapse, the arsonists opened the main door and I ran out," said the Standard Seven pupil, who aspires to be a doctor.
Good news
She will also have to undergo surgery to restore mobility in both hands. Doctors have had to graft skin to replace destroyed tissue on all four patients, taking healthy skin from other parts of their bodies, Dr Samuel Momanyi said.
"This also has its effects because the areas that supply the tissue to the burnt parts get a superficial wound which must be treated as well," he said.
But the good news is that the patients, now referred to as the "Kiambaa Four," have not developed any infections during skin-grafting, which the doctor said could have greatly affected their recovery.
"If there is no infection, a week or two is enough for the skin to blend," Dr Momanyi said.
Good Samaritan
Doctors had to stitch Mrs Macharia's right hand to her abdomen to produce a transfer of flesh to her right hand that was severely burnt as she tried to rescue her last-born child who died in the fire. Her face and legs were also severely burnt and disfigured.
She is critical of security personnel who, she says, did nothing as their houses, then the church, were torched.
Wanjiru was burnt when she tripped and fell on a narrow door. "I was trapped as the mattresses burnt me. I don't remember where I summoned the energy to lift myself up and run. I realised I was burnt about two kilometres away where a Good Samaritan took me to hospital," she said, shedding tears.
Njoroge is learning how to use his left hand after the fingers were badly burnt. His mother, Penninah Mbuthia, is at his bedside. But the three pupils have not lost hope; their one message for the government is: "when we recover, please take us back to school -- somewhere else".
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