Family joy as SGR ‘missing’ passenger found safe
An elderly man who went missing after he was reportedly kicked out of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) train has been found safe.
Peterson Mwangi, 74, was found in Nairobi’s Buruburu estate on Saturday, three days after his family reported to police it could not establish his whereabouts.
However, Mwangi’s son Elijah Waini, suggests via his Facebook page that his dad might have been mugged as he was found without his shoes and other belongings.
“We are elated to inform you that mzee has been found albeit sickly,” he wrote.
“We are forever grateful to our Almighty God, our friends, and those that have stuck with us.
The 74-year-old, who is reported to be mentally ill, boarded the SGR passenger train headed to Mombasa on May 11.
Kenya Railways reported in a statement that its staff discovered he’d boarded the train with an invalid ticket, a move that questions the firm’s procedure of checking in passengers.
“The invalid ticket belonged to a passenger who’d travelled the previous day from Mombasa to Nairobi,” Kenya Railways’ claimed.
But the parastatal doesn’t explain how Mwangi could go through all the checks at the Nairobi terminus before getting on the train with an invalid ticket.
According to KR procedure, any passenger found with an invalid ticket on the train is required to either pay for the ticket, payable at the destination, or alight at the nearest railway station.
“To assist Mwangi, the train crew requested him to reach out to a family member to pay for his journey but he neither had a phone nor any contact through which he could get assistance.”
The corporation pointed out that Mwangi willingly opted to alight at Athi River station. Further, they affirmed that the crew did not have any knowledge of Mwangi’s condition.