A heartbreaking chapter has come to light following the death of veteran Kenyan politician Phoebe Muga Asiyo. The revelations centre on a harrowing moment in her life when she desperately searched among dead children for her own sick daughter.
Phoebe Asiyo, who died peacefully in her sleep in North Carolina on July 16, 2025, at the age of 92, was not only a pioneer in women’s rights and politics but also a mother who faced a common mother’s worst nightmare.
In her memoir, It Is Possible: An African Woman Speaks, Asiyo recalls a time when her two-year-old daughter Lilian Atieno was admitted to Nairobi’s Infectious Diseases Hospital (IDH). The child fell critically ill, and after two days of uncertainty, her bed lay empty. “For hours, as a distraught mother, she turned over heaps of cold, lifeless bodies of babies as she desperately looked for her child,” the memoir reveals.
This memory haunts Asiyo’s narrative, showing her fierce love and the depths of her fear. She had no guarantee that her daughter would survive, but she refused to stop searching. The moment sheds light on the human side of a woman often celebrated only for her public achievements.
Asiyo rose to prominence as Kenya’s first female senior prison superintendent in 1963 and was elected the first woman elder among the Luo community. She served as Karachuonyo MP from 1980 to 1983 and again from 1992 to 1997. She was also a UNIFEM ambassador and a strong voice for women’s rights, education, and constitutional reform. Even after her retirement from mainstream politics, she chaired the Caucus for Women’s Leadership and mentored young leaders.
Her death has sparked national reflection not only on her public role but also on the private fears she endured. The story of a mother digging through piles of bodies remains both shocking and deeply moving.
She is survived by her daughter Lilian and the rest of her family, along with countless Kenyans who admired her courage and compassion. Funeral arrangements are being planned and will be announced soon.
By Kenyans