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The funeral service for Evans Yamboko, 20, the fourth-born in a family of seven, was conducted on a shamba his father had sold only three days earlier to pay his fee at Garissa University College.
Three days later, young Evans was among the 142 students who were felled by a hail of bullets in one of the most heinous terrorist attacks on Kenyan soil.
Now the ‘family investment’ is gone and all that is left is a tiny piece of land upon which the family home stands - the main house, a kitchen structure and the boy’s cottage.
“I sold my land to educate my son, my only hope. Now, I have no son and no land. Is the Sh100,000 the government is giving us enough to educate my other three children? Can it bring back my son? Very old people earn a salary, yet I get no support from the government to educate my children who are bright and promising. I lost my job in 1992, even before my son was born,” lamented Patrick Makokha, Evans’ dad.
“I appeal to the government to help me educate my remaining children, as you can see I have no means to achieve that. I have nothing else to sell to raise fees,” he wept during his son’s funeral service.
Evans, a God-fearing young man, had just been elected the university’s Christian Union (CU) treasurer before that tragic Thursday morning on April 2.
- Vivian Namwayi
