Tragedy as youthful Kenyan student in Australia drowns three months after arrival

A family in Moiben Constituency, Uasin Gishu County, has been thrown into mourning after their daughter, studying in Australia, drowned on Tuesday, February 21 afternoon.

Sharon Jepkosgei Kigen met her untimely death while she was swimming at Simmo's Beach, near Macquarie Fields in Sydney.

Reports indicate that emergency services were called to rescue her after she failed to resurface when swimming a about 3:45pm local time.

“Officers from The Traffic and Highway Patrol entered the water along with members of the public and commenced to search the water where the woman was located and brought to the shoreline,” New South Wales (NSW) Police said in a statement.

NSW Ambulance paramedics tried performing Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on the student but she could not be revived.

Jepkosgei was a student of Australian Catholic University-North Sydney. She had just arrived in the Oceania country for her studies in November 2022.

Her body lies at Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital as police continue with investigations.

Family and friends have set up a GoFundMe page for well-wishers to contribute money (they are targeting to raise KSh2.5 million) to enable her body repatriated to Kenya. At the time of publishing this article, KSh870,085 had already being raised.