The family of a Kenyan woman and her daughter whose bodies were found in a mobile food truck in Finland are appealing for help to enable them transport their remains back home for burial.
Catherine Akinyi and her daughter Mitchell Odhiambo were found dead at a parking lot in the resort town of Tahko, central Finland, on February 9, 2023.
Police in Finland have since launched investigations into their disappearance and deaths after they failed to return to their residence located in Nilsi, north of Tahko, where they ran a mobile catering business.
Speaking to The Standard from Kolwa, Kisumu East, Akinyi's mother Roselyn Aloo said the family cannot afford to transport the bodies of their kin back to Kenya and fear they could be disposed off in Finland.
Aloo said they need to travel to Finland, not only to help with burial plans but to also ascertain the circumstances that lead to the death of her daughter and granddaughter.
Grandson unreachable
She said that her 20-year-old grandson who is in the Finnish military and listed as next of kin is unreachable.
Aloo disclosed she last spoke to her daughter in January 2023 over the phone and got worried after Akinyi's sister, who also resides in Finland, called informing them that Akinyi and Odhiambo could not be traced.
She said Akinyi, 44, first travelled to Finland in 2008 and has been living there ever since.
Three months ago, Akinyi and her daughter Odhiambo were in Kenya to renew their passports and returned to Finland.
"She travelled to Finland at the invite of her late husband. She was going to work but on getting there, things did not work out. She enrolled in a catering college, where she studied and graduated, before enrolling in a nursing school where she had been studying until her death," said Aloo.
Aloo said Akinyi was the sole breadwinner of her family and ran the catering business to raise funds to support herself, and her family as well as to pay for nursing school.
