Fourteen-year-old Cheses Kanyaker lies quietly on her back at the Baringo County Referral Hospital (BCRH), her chest wrapped in surgical gauze.

The young girl, whose life has been marked by trauma and loss, is surrounded by medical personnel who work tirelessly to stabilise her fragile condition.

Though their faces are calm, their eyes betray the shock and horror of the incident that brought them here.

Cheses’ eyes are wide with fear. Her lips, dry and cracked, part slightly to reveal two brown teeth—a small but jarring glimpse of the trauma she has endured. She has lost both of her breasts in an incident still shrouded in uncertainty.

A child born and raised under hardship, Cheses has never attended school. She initially refused to disclose what had happened or who was responsible for the gruesome injuries.

Inflicted injuries

When Joshua Lokidor, a representative from the NGO Yes, We Can—which operates in the remote Tiaty region—arrived at her bedside, he tried to speak to her in her native Pokot language.

Eventually, she claimed she had inflicted the injuries on herself.

“I cut off my breasts because I wanted to die,” she said softly, explaining that her mother had been raped and murdered just a month earlier, leaving Cheses to care for her five younger siblings.

Her 65-year-old grandmother, Chepteyo Kanyaker, corroborated the girl’s claim.

“She walked into a hilly, shrubby area near our home around noon and cut off both her breasts with a sharp knife,” she told journalists through a translator.

“Then she returned, washed the blood from the knife, and placed it in the space between the door and the grass roof,” Kanyaker says.

Chepteyo recounted how she was called from the market in Chemolingot by a neighbour who found Cheses lying in pain behind the house, blood pouring from the gaping wounds on her chest.

“She was just lying there, on her back,” the grandmother said, fighting back tears.

Abusive marriage

The girl’s mother, a single parent to six children, had fled an abusive marriage.

Chepteyo described the children’s father as “a man with a long criminal history who cannot be trusted with any child or responsibility.”

She added that Cheses had previously attempted to take poison, overwhelmed by the burden of raising her siblings alone.

Matters worsened two weeks ago when the children were placed with different families and NGOs—including World Vision—to provide them with education and care.

The separation devastated Cheses further.

Although two suspects were arrested in connection to the mother’s brutal rape and murder, they were later released due to lack of follow-up.

Lokidor expressed scepticism about Cheses’ version of events.

“There’s another story here. I don’t believe she did this to herself,” he said. “Maybe someone threatened her.”

His suspicion is echoed by reports from earlier that day when Cheses allegedly confided in a young man from Tiaty Sub-County.

She told him that a tall man, whose face she couldn’t recall, attacked her and mutilated her breasts, leaving her for dead.

Baringo County Commissioner, who happened to be at the hospital on unrelated matters, promised a full investigation.

“I’ve contacted the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) in Kabarnet. The claim that she mutilated herself doesn’t add up,” he said.

Medical staff at BCRH shared the same concern.

“Clinically, it’s not possible for someone to completely amputate both breasts alone,” the hospital superintendent said via text message, explaining he was occupied at the County Assembly answering questions about irregular employment practices.