Another police officer has committed suicide at his home.
According to police reports, constable Donfan Wanyaga who is attached to the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport reportedly committed suicide at his home in Kagio, Kirinyaga county on Tuesday.
Confirming the incident, Mwea-West sub-county police commander Stephen Okal hang himself in his house.
The deceased officer’s family has confirmed that had left a suicide note asking his wife to give out his phone to his son.
Reports by neighbors indicate that the officer’s wife had called them claiming that her husband wanted to commit suicide, but they unfortunately arrived when he had already done it.
The body of the deceased was removed to the Kibugi Funeral home pending an autopsy.
This comes barely two weeks after fugitive policewoman Carolin Kangogo committed suicide to escape arrest over the murder of two people-both her boyfriends.
According to police, Kangogo had been in hiding until when she was reported to have gone to her parents’ house in Elgeyo Marakwet where she locked herself up in the toilet and blew her head off.
Early this month, another officer attached to Gigiri Police Station reportedly committed suicide while on duty. He was said to have shot himself.
The officer who was identified as Police Constable David Machwa Mbatia (No 233456) used an AK 47 Riffle to take his life while on guard duties at the Amisom offices located behind the United States of America Embassy, four kilometres from his station.
In April this year, a General Service Unit officer attached to the Interior Ministry headquarters’ VIP Protection shot his wife dead before committing suicide.
He was among the bodyguards assigned to Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiangi.
The officer identified by police as Hudson Wakise is said to have opened fire on his wife after a quarrel over domestic issues at the woman’s house, just outside the GSU camp in Ruaraka.
It is understood that they were living together in the camp until recently when she moved out and rented her own house following a fall-out over family issues.
In January this year, a police officer shot himself dead in Garissa just hours after a prison warder committed suicide in Mwea after killing a police officer in a bitter love triangle.
The two incidents followed another incident in Nairobi’s Kamukunji Police Station where a police officer shot a female colleague dead and injured another during an argument before he fled the station while wielding an AK47 rifle.
He was later hunted down and shot dead by colleagues, even though police claimed he shot himself dead as they tried to arrest him after shooting him on the leg.
The incidents raised serious concerns, prompting action from the National Police Service Commission (NPSC) which announced that it had established what its Chairman Eliud Kinuthia described as a “tailor-made psychosocial and relationship support of police officers which remain our first priority.”
Experts have identified psychological challenges as a major contributor of increased suicide cases among police officers.
