There is a word in Kenya that should be associated with celebration, but too often ends up being linked to mourning: return.
Return from a wedding, from a funeral, return home, return to everyday life.
On Sunday night, along the Kisii–Kisumu motorway, in Chabera, that return turned into yet another death toll.
Twelve people lost their lives in a violent road accident involving two lorries and a van.
They were travelling together, members of the same family from Nyamira County, returning from a wedding ceremony in Kakamega.
At least ten died instantly. Two others died shortly afterwards in hospital. The survivors were rushed to Nyamira County Referral Hospital.
Most of the victims came from the village of Rangenyo, in the western part of Mugirango. An entire family, or almost, wiped out in a matter of seconds, on a road that many travel every day without thinking twice, as if it were a detail of life and not one of its main threats.
Less than 24 hours earlier, on Saturday night, another accident had already cast a shadow over the hills of the same region. In Ekerenyo, along the Kisii-Kericho road, at least eight people had lost their lives, including a minor. In that case too, the dynamics involved a heavy goods vehicle and a passenger vehicle: a trailer and a shuttle bus from Nairobi.
Twenty dead in twenty-four hours.
Two different accidents, the same picture: families returning home and never arriving.
Scenes 
Nyamira Governor Amos Nyaribo spoke of a county “once again in mourning”, stressing that the increase in accidents during the festive season is an alarming sign not only for Nyamira but for the whole country. He renewed his appeal to the relevant agencies to take ‘decisive action now’, while messages of condolence and prayer were sent to the families of the victims, which alone cannot stop lorries or straighten roads.
The problem, in fact, is not episodic. It is structural.
According to data from the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA), at least 4,458 people lost their lives on Kenyan roads between January and December 2025. This number already exceeds that for the whole of 2024, which stood at 4,311 victims.
The statistics tell the story of a silent war that is fought every day on the asphalt. Pedestrians continue to pay the highest price, with 1,685 deaths recorded. They are followed by passengers, with 723 deaths on buses, matatus and private vehicles. Motorists themselves caused 403 deaths. These figures do not make the news individually, but when taken together they describe a normalised national emergency.
In Kenya, people often die on their way to celebrations.
They die on their way back from a wedding, a funeral, a visit to relatives. They die on roads that should unite but instead separate them forever. And every time, the script is the same: official statements, ambulances, overcrowded hospitals, broken families, and then silence. Until the next return that will never come.