The Sunday, September 28, 2025, morning accident at Kikopey area on the Nairobi-Nakuru highway claimed 16 lives from one family in a Murang’a village.
The victims included grandparents, their daughters, a nephew, and an uncle.
The victims were among 17 family members traveling in a 14-seater matatu headed to Nakuru for a family visit.
The trip, meant to unite relatives and bring cheer to ailing kin, ended in tragedy when the matatu they were in collided head-on with a trailer along the busy Nakuru–Nairobi highway.
A bereaved member of the family Patrick Mburu recounted the painful toll.
“In that vehicle were my parents, Elija and Lydiah Mburu, my sisters Pauline, Naomi, Joyce, and Catherine, my nephew, and my uncle,” he said when journalists visited the family on Monday. Police said 13 people died on the spot while three more succumbed to injuries raising the toll to 16.
The hired matatu was driven by Elijah Mburu, a grandson in the family.
For Rodovic Gikonyo, another family member, he was lucky to be alive as he revealed he was meant to join the ill-fated trip but stayed behind due to an urgent matter concerning his daughter’s education.
“Had it not been for that emergency, we too would have been in that vehicle,” he said.
Another family in the matatu also suffered a tragedy.
Steven Gicharu lost his wife, son and daughter in the crash.
The victims came from Kandara, Murang’a where the families are now planning to bury the victims.
In Rongai, Nakuru, where the family was headed, preparations had been made to receive them. Food and seats lay untouched, which marked grim reminders of a reunion that never was.
The driver of the trailer involved in the collision, Juakali Vahavuka, said he attempted to avoid the matatu but could not.
“I tried to swerve, but the matatu seemed to be at high speed. It hit the lorry head on,” he recounted.
The bodies of the deceased were preserved at Nakuru PGH mortuary, awaiting postmortem examinations as the families begin painful preparations for burial.
For now, the communities in Murang’a and Nakuru remain united in grief, praying for the recovery of the survivors and mourning a tragedy that has nearly wiped out an entire family.
Fatal accidents have been on the rise amid efforts to contain the trend. More than 4,000 people are killed annually in separate accidents in the country. Thousands others are left with injuries which have a negative impact on families and friends at large.
The accident took place hours after six people, including occupants of an ambulance, died along a few kilometres away along the same highway.
This increased to 21, the number of those killed in accidents within hours on Sunday, police said.
On Saturday evening, a patient, her husband, two more relatives, a nurse and the ambulance driver all succumbed in the accident that occurred near Kimende along the Nakuru-Nairobi Highway.
Witnesses say the ambulance, affiliated with St Mary’s Mission Hospital, Elementaita, was speeding, rushing a critically ill patient to the hospital, when it suddenly lost control and crashed.
The aftermath of the accident was a mangled wreck that claimed the lives of everyone on board instantly.
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