Police get welfare for officers killed on duty

July 17, 2017 is a day Jane Mwangi, 36, will never forget. It was the day her husband, John Mwangi, died.

Mwangi, then aged 38, was among five police officers from the Administration Police Border Patrol Unit who died in North Eastern region when the police vehicle they were travelling in was blown up by a landmine.

Jane, a mother of two, was a housewife. She had to leave the police house the family lived in at Nairobi’s Madaraka estate.

With no job to support her young family, she moved back to her parents’ home in Limuru where she is now a subsistence farmer.

When she was invited to an annual event organised by the National Police Service Commission to honour fallen officers, she was reluctant to attend.

“I did not want anything that would remind me of the events that followed the death of my husband,” she said.

She eventually agreed to attend the event held at the Administration Police Training College in Embakasi on Friday last week.

She was relieved when she heard that the National Police was in the process of establishing a welfare department to take care of spouses of officers who die in the line of duty.

“I believe the welfare department will help me access my late husband’s dues,” she said.

Agnes Kivindu, whose husband also died in the same incident, said the decision to set up a police welfare department was timely.

Kivindu was lucky to have secured the benefits of her late husband almost a year after the father of three died.

The welfare office will act as a liaison unit between the families and the deceased officers’ employers.

Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i on Friday attended the event where police chiefs met with dozens of families of police officers who had lost their lives in the line of duty in the last 12 months.

About 20 spouses were present at the event to celebrate the lives of the fallen officers.

This is the second year the National Police Service has organised such an event during which family members and colleagues of departed officers pray together.

Dr Matiang’i said the welfare unit would be fully set up by the end of January next year.