This archive report was first published on 10 November 2019.
Death has been stalking Kenyan learners abroad, with several students dying under mysterious circumstances or through suicide. The trend has left communities of Kenyans living in the US grappling with the need to support learners who find themselves in difficult situations outside their country.
One of the recent cases is that of Norah Borus Chelagat, a top achiever in the 2013 national examinations who lost her life through suicide. Chelagat, who was the fourth best student nationally in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination and the best girl in Nairobi, was found dead in her room at Stanford University on June 14.
According to the Santa Clara medical examiner's office, the suicide was probably caused by poisoning. This was the fourth student death announced at the facility since February. Chelagat was a master's student at Stanford University, which she had joined in September 2014.
Another case is that of John Omari Hassan, a 26-year-old who drowned mysteriously in a pond in Baltimore, Maryland in July. Hassan had left Kenya four months earlier to pursue postgraduate studies in the US. He graduated from Kenyatta University in October 2016.
Patricia Miswa, a Kenyan student who left Kenya in 2017 to pursue a master's degree in Creative Writing at the University of Minnesota, was found dead in her room in August 2018. Her mother had tried calling her but there was no response. The hostel management and police discovered Miswa's lifeless body inside her room.
Recently, students with Kenyan roots in the US have also lost lives in unclear circumstances. Eric Kang'ethe, a Computer Engineering student at the University of Massachusetts, died in mysterious circumstances early this month. His body was found by police in a vehicle outside McGuirk Alumni Stadium on the evening of October 30. The death was described as
