21 Gun Salute! Tragedy As Three GSU Officers Die In The Line Of Duty After A Fatal Road Crash

Piece by: Kaka Gee
Lifestyle

It so painful to lose a loved one. Death is the most cruel thing to ever happen to human beings since creation. When it strikes, it always it leaves devastated hearts in its wake. The psychological and emotional pain it slaps on the affected is way beyond any fathom.

That's the feeling families, friends and colleagues of three General Service Unit police officers who died instantly on Tuesday following an accident on Kabarnet-Iten Road are going through. They are still trying to come to terms to the cruel hand of death as the monster called road accidents continue to kill and maim thousands of Kenyans every year.

Besides the dead members of the dreaded arm of the Kenya Police, three others sustained serious injuries after their vehicle veered off the road and rolled several times as it negotiated a sharp bend. The officers had been deployed to Kerio Valley to fight bandits from Baringo and Elgeyo Marakwet counties.

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Baringo county commissioner Peter Okwanyo said that the officers were heading to Tot, Elgeyo Marakwet from Marigat at the time of the accident. The injured officers were rushed to Kabarnet county referral hospital.

"They were later referred to Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret. The driver lost control of the car as he negotiated corners in Kaptimbor area near Rimoi game reserve," Okwanyo said.

Okwanyo asked drivers plying the route to be cautious on the hilly road. Eye witnesses said the police vehicle was speeding before it crashed.

According to National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) statistics, road accidents have claimed a total of 1,917 lives between January 1, 2016 and August 18, 2016. NTSA reports that 27.3 percent of those fatalities were motorcyclists, 15 percent pedal cyclists, drivers (12 percent), passengers (nine percent) while 8.8 of them were pedestrians.

This is a very worrying status for a country that’s looking forward at growing its Gross Domestic Product in double digits. We cannot just keep losing such numbers of able-bodied people and expect our country to grow as expected.