Body of Sharon Jepkosgei, student who drowned in Australia arrives in Kenya

The body of Sharon Jepkosgei Kigen, the Kenyan student who drowned while swimming in Australia has arrived in Kenya.

The plane carrying Sharon's remains touched down at the Eldoret International Airport on Monday, March 13 at around 7 am.

Family members could not hold back their tears as the coffin bearing Sharon's body was removed from the plane. 

What happened?

Sharon met her untimely death on February 21 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 at 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.

Had just arrived in Australia

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

Her course in Information Technology (IT) was supposed to commence on February 23.

Her family and friends set up a GoFundMe page for well-wishers to contribute money (they were targeting to raise KSh2.5 million) to enable her body repatriated to Kenya. At the time of publishing this article, KSh1.7 million had being raised.

Sharon will be laid to rest tomorrow (Tuesday, March 14) in Moiben Constituency, Uasin Gishu County.