A 23-year-old Kenyan immigrant in Canada drowned in a swimming pool while she was doing a livestream on Facebook last week. According to CNN, the video of the tragic incident showed Hellen Wendy Nyabuto fighting to float in the water after she dived into the pool’s deep side.
Prior to her drowning, the deceased health worker had replied to comments from users on the social media platform before she went back to swim. Her body was recovered from the pool some hours later.
“I watched that video. I cried. It is terrible,” the deceased woman’s father, Nyabuto John Kiyondi, told the news outlet from his residence in Kenya.
“She communicated with me two days before she perished. She sounded very fine and I was very happy. She promised me a phone. I didn’t feel anything abnormal,” the 56-year-old added.
Hellen’s family said she stayed in Toronto with her younger brother, adding that she was a nursing student as well as a part-time health worker.
“She has been in Canada for about three years,” her brother, Enock, said. “All the financial responsibilities (of their family in Kenya) were on her.”
Hellen’s father also said her demise means he is “back to square one.”
“She was assisting me financially to educate her siblings, particularly in terms of school fees and other expenses. I’m stuck now and back to square one. I’m wondering how her younger siblings will continue schooling,” Kiyondi said.
Her family has since set up a GoFundMe to help raise funds to bring her body back home for burial.
“According to our tradition, one is supposed to be buried where he or she was born. I’ll not feel comfortable, psychologically, if my daughter is buried away from Kenya,” Kiyondi said.
“The family is going through a rough time now. All we want is for her body to be transported back home for burial,” he added.
