Pauline Loskie learnt of the fire tragedy at Utumishi Girls Senior School from the school’s WhatsApp group.

She immediately reached out to her husband, then relatives in Lokichar and Nakuru to help in getting to the school and finding her only child Fortune Amaya, who was a student at the school, before she could leave Kakuma.

“When I saw it, I was shocked,” she says.

The mother from Kakuma in Turkana County recalls how relatives scattered across the country immediately began searching for her daughter, moving from the school to the hospital, hoping she had survived.

As the hours passed without answers, that’s when fragments of Amaya’s final moments began to emerge from survivors.

Fortune Amaya, one of 16 girls from Utumishi Girls Academy and grade 19 student that passed on in the May 28 fire

Photo credit: LELETI JASSOR /MTAA WANGU

Days later, Losike was called to provide DNA samples before eventually identifying her daughter's body on May 30 at the Naivasha Funeral Home.

“Despite my samples being taken to be matched with my daughter’s, I was able to identify her by the rosary I had given her, some wrist bracelets, and a watch because her head had all been burnt,” says an emotional Losike.

The loss, she notes, is difficult to comprehend because Amaya was more than a daughter.

“She was a very loving child. She never gave me trouble,” Losike says. “If she did anything wrong, she would apologize. Sometimes she would even write a note and leave it under my pillow, saying she was sorry. I have lost a daughter, a sister, and most especially a friend.”

An emotional Pauline Losike, Fortune Amaya's mother, at their home in Gilgil.

Photo credit: LELETI JASSOR / MTAA WANGU

Even in death, she says, Amaya is remembered as a role model in her community, where she often shared books with younger children and helped them with their studies.

As investigations continue, the family says they want justice.

“Even if she is gone and we will never see her again, we want justice for the children. No parent should go through this,” says Esther Akiru, Amaya’s aunt.

Mother's pain after losing the only child in the Utumishi Girls school fire tragedy

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Leleti Jassor