• The body was retrieved Saturday evening after 10 days of gruesome search. It was found about 500 metres from where she jumped off.
• Despite being badly mutilated the family confirmed that it was Neema through a tattoo on her body.
Image: Elias Yaa
The body of Beatrice Neema Kalume, a girl who jumped off a bridge to her death, was found trapped in rocks near Seahorse Beach within Kilifi Creek.
The body was retrieved Saturday evening after 10 days of gruesome search. It was found about 500 metres from where she jumped off.
The body was positively identified by family members at the Kilifi county referral hospital mortuary.
Despite being badly mutilated the family confirmed that it was Neema through a tattoo on her body.
The search mission that led to the retrieval of the body was spearheaded by officers from the Coast Guard after divers from the Kilifi county government allegedly suspended the operation after five days.
Mary Pahe, mother to Neema said the ten-day search has been torturous.
Pahe, who has been camping at the Old Ferry landing site in Kilifi, thanked the officers for retrieving the body.
“It has not been easy. I was not sure if I would get the body of my daughter. I could not sleep for the last ten days. I have confirmed the body is that of my daughter,” she said.
Teddy Kalume, a brother to the deceased hailed the efforts of the divers saying his family will now be at peace.
Neema, 22, a final year student at the Shanzu Teachers’ Training College in Mombasa, jumped from the Kilifi bridge on August 9 around 5 am.
According to a family member, Neema came home from college on August 8 complaining of a headache.
“She was taken to the hospital in Malindi and later to an intercessor. Later in the evening, she slept with her mother because she was still unwell," Mercy Karembo, a family member said.
"At night she told her mother that she wanted to drink water and she went out of the house."
Her mother tried to question why she was going outside yet there was water in the house.
“She told her mother that the water in the house was very cold and she wanted some warm water outside the house. She vanished in the dark and the mother woke everyone to search for her,” she added
They searched for her up to the Indian Ocean in Malindi but they did not find her.
They were later told that Neema was seen boarding a Toyota Probox to Kilifi, alighted at the Naivas Kilifi stage and took a boda boda.
Kilifi North police commander Kenneth Maina confirmed that Neema jumped off the bridge despite pleas by the boda boda rider.
“The boda boda rider tried to wrestle her in a bid to stop her from jumping but when another motorist came to separate them, in a blink of an eye, Neema jumped off the bridge,” Maina said.
Her body is currently lying at the Kilifi mortuary awaiting postmortem.
Image: Elias Yaa