Body of missing Machakos man identified

The body of a young man found floating in the Mombasa port in October last year has been identified as that of Duncan Kiveli Wavinya, 27, from Mwala, Machakos County.

Before he disappeared, Kiveli had communicated with his family via short text messages expressing his frustrations at losing his job as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

For about nine months, his mother Joyce Wavinya had been reading her son’s last two messages, sent four days before his body was found in the Indian Ocean, hoping to see him again.

One message read: “Hi family, I will need some time alone to contemplate on how far I have come and what the future holds for me. It may take a while but then, please do not look for me or even worry over my disappearance for you will not find me until am ready to come back,”

The other said, “No matter how much you miss or need me, just know I am ok and you will always be in my heart, thoughts and prayers.”

Sadly, on June 17, Ms Wavinya received a call from police investigator Deborah Karimi telling her that the body of a man found floating in the Indian Ocean last year was that of her son.

“I never thought my son had died. That is why we had to travel to Mombasa and we have positively identified the body at Coast General Teaching and Referral mortuary,” she said amid tears.

“I thought he was away looking for job and he would come back to support us, as he was the only one in the family who was working but lost his job as a result of Covid-19.”

Before Kiveli left Nairobi, she said, he had expressed frustrations about fending for the family and raising his only brother's university school fees.

“I wished he could have returned home and discussed how best to support his brother rather than doing this. But thank God we have seen his body. Now we are here struggling to raise money to pay the Sh200,000 mortuary bill apart from other funeral expenses,” Ms Wavinya said.

Preliminary police investigations indicate that Kiveli might have committed suicide as a result of depression after losing his job in Nairobi. But it is not clear why he travelled from Nairobi to kill himself in Mombasa, where he had no relatives.

Kiveli had bought a Modern Coast bus ticket online and travelled to Mombasa on October 16, 2020, mobile phone data from Safaricom shows.

Onesmus Kioko, an uncle of Kiveli, said before the young man left Nairobi, he had instructed his mother to come to the city, pick up his household items and sell them to raise money for his brother’s school fees.

“The family had been looking for him and they were hopeful that one day he will resurface. That is why we even never thought of doing any ceremony to indicate he was dead,” Mr Onesmus said.

Documents from the family that are in the possession of the police indicate that Kiveli had sent Sh15,000 to her mother before travelling to Mombasa.

Kiveli’s body was among those identified to be disposed of as unclaimed but police had sought more time to trace the family.

The family plans to conduct a postmortem exam this week to verify the cause of death.