Kenyan athlete committed suicide

[coldneck]

This happened in Hamilton, very sad...

www.eastandard.net/hm_news/news_s.php?articleid=34913

Envoy says Kenyan athlete committed suicide

By Omulo Okoth

Kenyan athlete David Njuguna, who died in Canada on December 31 2005, commited suicide, it was confirmed yesterday.

His agent (name withheld) did not have any medical insurance so the Kenyan Community in Ontario has been left to shoulder the responsibility of sending the body home.

According to the Kenyan High Commissioner in Ontario, Rateng’ Oginga Ogego, Njuguna, 26, apparently committed suicide.

"We are tracking down his agent (name withheld) who brought him to Canada to tell us his side of the story," said the envoy.

"We are worried by this development and have asked Police to help us trace him. The Kenyan Community here is on top of things and are raising funds to take the body home," he said.

"Initial investigations indicate that Njuguna committed suicide, which is a sad thing," the envoy said.

Njuguna, 26, died on the night of December 31 2005 at his apartment on 515 main street East, Hamilton.

His family in Kenya are peasant farmers. The marathon runner arrived in Canada in May last year.

He came by invitation of a Canadian manager (name withheld).

Ogego said the High Commission facilitated his brother’s travel from US to Canada to help in the exercise.

A committee has been formed to make arrangements for embalment of the body and burial.

The required amount to send the body home is $15,000 (Sh1m), a Kenyan working in Canada said.

"We have two fundraisers planned for this weekend. One in Hamilton, where he died and another in Toronto, where most Kenyans reside," said the Kenyan.

"What I gather from friends is that David committed suicide as a result of extreme stress," he said.

"His living conditions were not the best. He was sharing a two-bedroomed apartment with other Kenyans," the source confided.

"He had reached a point where he couldn’t afford his share of the rent contribution. He had no money for food. He was unable to leave Canada because he didn’t have a return ticket," he said.

"I am extremely angry that our young athletes can be driven to take their own lives by getting trapped by "agents" who don’t care," he said.

Athletics Kenya secretary general, David Okeyo, confirmed having heard of the news but added that AK could not comment further.

"We did not know how he went to Canada," said Okeyo.

A trust account has been opened for those who would wish to contribute.

Account Name: David Njuguna Fund

Bank: RBC Royal Bank, Jackson Square Branch, Hamilton

Transfer number: 01822-003

Account Number: 104 420-5

[Boner]

Here's the article from the Hamilton Spec.

www.hamiltonspectator.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=hamilton/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1137107411653&call_pageid=1020420665036&col=1014656511815


Friends sending runner home

John Rennison, the Hamilton Spectator
Joseph Kamau holds a photo of his brother David Njuguna, a Kenyan long-distance runner, who died Dec. 31 in his Hamilton apartment.

By John Burman
The Hamilton Spectator
(Jan 13, 2006)
Troubled Kenyan long-distance runner David Njuguna is on his way home.

But his brother Joseph Kamau, his friends and members of the Kenyan community in Hamilton and Toronto need to raise as much as $15,000 to cover expenses for that trip.

He died Dec. 31 in his bedroom in a third floor Main Street East apartment after 18 months of poor results, floundering training and what appeared to be loss of interest in running.

Njuguna did well in 2002 and 2003 but began to fail in 2004 and only entered one race last year where he did badly.

He ran a race in Grimsby last summer but came in a full five minutes slower than his best time. His friends say it appeared he no longer cared about running. All the while, he ran well behind his brother Joseph's times.

His former manager, Tim Forrester, said Njuguna took his life early on the morning of New Year's Eve in an apartment he shared with fellow Kenyan runner Peter Tambo.

Tambo found the 26-year-old's body when he got up that morning and noticed blood on the kitchen floor. Trembling, he followed the trail to Njuguna's room. There were no signs of violence.

"He had not been eating very well or sleeping for two weeks before New Year's," Tambo told The Spectator, adding he has no idea what might have been troubling his friend.

"He didn't talk about himself."

Hamilton police have sent blood and tissue samples from Njuguna's body to the Centre for Forensic Sciences in Toronto for analysis.

Nairobi media reported yesterday that the office of Kenya's high commissioner in Ontario reported Njuguna's death as a suicide.

"We don't know what happened, they have sent for tests," Njuguna's older brother, Joseph Kamau, said yesterday as he sat in what was his brother's living room.

His brother's Bible lay on the coffee table and Joseph gently turned it over and over in his hands as he searched for words.

"We just don't know why.

"Our parents are asking when we will bring him home." Njuguna's mother and father, Jesse Ndumbi and Teresia Njambi-Ndumbi, live in Muranga northeast of Nairobi with their eldest son, Jesse, 43.

They are farmers in an area that was once a prime coffee growing region of Kenya before global commodity prices fell and their government stopped subsidizing the farmers.

They don't have the money to bring David home.

Forrester, who managed Njuguna when he was still running, said, "David was a good runner. He won a few decent races and placed well, but he was not what you'd call a great runner."

He said Njuguna was not the runner his brother Joseph is and probably never would have been although Kamau, 33, idolized his younger brother.

Forrester said Joseph, whom he calls "one of the greatest runners of all time," has been staying with him while he sorts out his brother's death.

"He is devastated.

"I don't know what was going on," Forrester said of Njuguna's declining interest in running. He added that although Njuguna was not working, he still had enough money to get by and even had an airline ticket to go home to Kenya with his brother on Jan. 28.

"Joseph found he had money in his bank accounts, too. He wasn't destitute.

"He had plans. He and Joseph talked twice a week and they were going home together Jan. 28," Forrester said.

He added the brothers were like a lot of Kenyan athletes who compete in North America to earn money they'd have no hope of ever seeing at home.

"They can make $500 to $1,000 a week when you average the purses out," he said, adding Njuguna was sending money home to his parents as recently as two weeks before he died.

Loyd Kibaara is the head of a committee of Ontario Kenyan community members who are trying to raise the funds to send Njuguna home for burial.

"It's the right thing to do," he says quietly.

There will be a fundraising meeting tomorrow at the Kenyan Community in Ontario office at 1992 Yonge St., unit 203 at 5 p.m. Money will also be collected in Hamilton on Sunday at 78 Vine St. downtown.

Anyone wishing to help can also make a donation at the RBC Royal Bank branch in Jackson Square in Hamilton.

The account name is the David Njuguna Fund; Transfer number 01822-003; account number 104-420-5.

For more information, contact Loyd Kibaara at 905-667-7476 or 905-667-7497.

[e-mail]

905-526-2469

[SI]

Who was handling him?