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kismayu (insidesomalia.org)-He helped bring two lives into this world moments before his own was taken away.
Dr Victor Okumu performed emergency Caesarean section to bring forth two babies, minutes before he was killed in an explosion in war-torn Somalia last Monday. His colleagues say he had great love for children and spent most of his time serving the sick and pregnant mothers in war zones.
While in his professional element, he served in Sierra Leone at the height of the civil war that lasted more than 10 years, which claimed millions of lives.
In Sudan, Dr Okumu helped to save lives during the war that pitted rebels of Southern Sudan and the government. He was based in the Darfur hot spot during the war.
And just when Sudan was cooling off, Somalia erupted and Dr Okumu willingly went there.
The 56-year-old father of five seemed always present at every trouble spot and was willing to take the risk to save lives.
The last statement he made to his wife Ursula Sanya was: “We have been through a very disturbing and threatening situation at the close of the year, but God saw us through it. That gives me faith that this New Year will be full of success.
“Challenges are bound to come our way, but the God who saw us through the end-year incident will give us victory.”
He was referring to an incident on December 29 when he and his wife were forced to spend a night at a good Samaritan’s at Ahero in Nyanza to escape from a gang that had blocked the road on their way to a funeral in Busia.
“The men blocked our way and were approaching us with machetes. We missed death by a whisker,” remembers Ms Sanya.
The couple was traveling to their rural home in Samia to bury a relative who had died when they ran into trouble. At the time, the country was tense after the December 27 General Election.
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