Barricade tape for crime scene (Courtesy)

A 34-year-old South Sudanese woman and her two children tragically died of suffocation in Nakuru County, Kenya, on Thursday.

According to family member Athum Malek Athum, the deceased family had plans to return to the US next week on June 26, 2024.

Athum explained that the woman, Abuk Deng Ayak, along with her seven-year-old son Deng Deng Bak and three-year-old daughter Akunjok Deng Bak, passed away after Abuk inadvertently left a burning charcoal stove in their home.

The sequence of events unfolded when Abuk had gone to the market the previous night to buy food for her children. Upon returning, she was exhausted and decided to take a short nap while leaving the stove burning in her room.

Tragically, Abuk never woke up. Her eldest son found her unconscious in the early hours of Thursday morning, around 3 am, surrounded by carbon monoxide in the room.

Upon discovering his mother’s condition, Athum, preparing for school, immediately sought help from neighbors. When assistance arrived, Abuk and her son were found lifeless, while her daughter was unconscious.

Emergency responders rushed the three-year-old girl to the ICU, but she succumbed to the effects of carbon monoxide poisoning a few hours later.

“The lady who passed on yesterday [Thursday] with her two children, on the day before she passed on, she went to the market and did some shopping for her kids,” Athum told Eye Radio.

‘She came back home after shopping, prepared something for her kids, you know, it was a little bit late, and she decided to bring into the room the stove she was using for cooking potatoes,” she said.

“She just lay on her bed, and fell asleep, leaving the fire on the stove burning.

“They found that the lady, the eight-year-old boy, were not alive.  Only the baby, who was kicking was rushed to the nearby hospital, who was then taken to ICU but passed on also.”

The family is calling upon well-wishers to help in airlifting the bodies to their hometown in Aweil East County of Northern Bar El Ghazal State.