Boy drowns in open water pit in Kiambu

A two-year-old boy drowned in an open water-filled pit near the gate of a residential compound along New York Road in Kiamumbi, Kiambu County, on Thursday morning.

The deceased was under the care of a 21-year-old househelp who told police she had been left to look after the child at about 10am.

The woman left the boy playing with another four-year-old boy at the landlord’s house within the same compound. A few minutes later, the boy returned and informed her that friend had fallen into an open pit filled with water near the gate.

She rushed to the scene and found the child floating in the water and unresponsive. She pulled him out, performed CPR and rushed him to Jacaranda Maternity Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Police visited the scene, which was processed and documented.

The child’s body was later moved to Kiambu Level 5 Hospital mortuary, where it was being preserved pending an autopsy.

Elsewhere, a 12-year-old boy died after a gold mining site collapsed while he was playing near the excavation area in Ojalo Village, Siaya County, on Thursday afternoon.

The deceased, a Grade Six pupil at Bar-Ding Primary School, was trapped under a heap of soil after the mining site collapsed at Masumbi Sub-Location.

The incident was reported to Kogelo Police Station at about 3:30pm by a resident, James Nyanga.

Police officers rushed to the scene and found the boy’s lifeless body after members of the public had retrieved him from beneath the soil.

Preliminary information indicated that the boy had been playing with other children near the mining site when the ground suddenly collapsed, trapping him under the soil.

The boy was found with no visible physical injuries.

Scene of Crime personnel from Siaya Sub-County processed and documented the scene before the body was moved to the Siaya County Referral Hospital mortuary, where it was preserved pending an autopsy.

Police have launched investigations into the circumstances surrounding the collapse.