Parent from hell! Migori mother abandons twins in church

Piece by: star.writer
Lifestyle

After her partner denied fathering her twins, a Migori woman abandoned them in a church in Awendo when they were just six months old.

Then she disappeared.

Now she wants them back from an orphanage in Rongo. The twins, a boy and girl, are about a year and eight months old. The man says she can't have them because she neglected them.

The former couple, a businessman in Mbita town and former pub attendant,  are being held at Kamagambo police station in Rongo town and facing charges of child neglect.

Rongo resident magistrate Raymond Lang’at ordered the couple to undergo DNA testing to determine the twins' paternity before a trial can begin.

Rongo childrens' officer David Magongo said that on Tuesday, the couple heard that the twins were in Rongo.

“The twins were abandoned by the woman when they were about six months old in a church in South Sakwa ward in Awendo on February last year after she had quarrels with the man,” Magongo said.

Paternity and fidelity were the issues and they are said to have argued repeatedly.

They met when the businessman was working in Mbita in Homa Bay and met the woman, a waiter in a pub.

They started a relationship that was rocked from the start with trust issues.

They quarrelled for months and the fighting became unbearable for the woman.

She was dejected and is said to have walked for more than 45 kilometres to South Sakwa where she left the twins in a church.

A good Samaritan found the children, took them to the police and reported to the children's department.

The twins were taken to the New Life orphanage in Kisumu.

Magongo said that when the couple heard that the matter of adoption was to come up in a Rongo court, they turned up at his office and wanted to claim the twins.

“She called me and we were to meet in Rongo. She said she wanted the twins back. I told her she could not live with them after neglecting them in the first place," her ex-partner reportedly said.

The businessman said that after the issue of adoption came up, he realised that they were from his ex-partner after his local chief alerted him.

“She left and closed all her phones, all her three numbers did not go through until recently when she called me,” he said.

He said because the children were last traced to him, he has been forced to look for the woman until now.

“She wanted the kids back so that she can go with them to Kisii. Her main source of income is not known. As the government records last traced me, I refused,” the man said.

The ex-couple ended up at the children's office, and the officer alerted Kamagambo police officers who checked on the matter and arrested the two on the spot.

The court ordered that the children continue to stay at the orphange for three months while the case is heard.

MANUEL ODENY/The Star