kermit
New Lister
Man, imagine people visit your home kukuambia your boy dropped 1km from the sky..... some parents in Kakamega went through this...
>>> https://news.sky.com/story/who-was-the-man-who-fell-from-the-sky-11859868
It was sunny and warm on 30 June as residents in south London finished their lunch and unwound on a leisurely Sunday afternoon.
But the peace was shattered in Offerton Road with a terrifying thump.
A man occupied a crater in one of the back gardens after falling through the sky for a kilometre.
His lifeless frame had pulverised the concrete and mangled the lawn and he had barely missed a tenant on a sun-lounger.
A witness said the man looked like a "block of ice".
The locals were shocked and puzzled. Did he have a name? Where did he come from? Was he a stowaway on a passenger plane?
Had he risked his existence in a desperate attempt to improve it?
Sky News has spent the last few months trying to determine the identity of this individual and we now believe he is a 29-year-old who worked as an airport cleaner in Kenya. It had only taken 20 seconds or so for him to plummet from a Kenya Airways passenger plane.
We began our hunt at the biggest airport in Kenya on the assumption the stowaway had probably worked there.
I was assisted by local journalist Christabel Ligami and together we asked agents and cargo operators whether they knew of anyone who had gone missing.
It took us a couple of days, but we finally got a break from an Uber driver called Kamau.
"I've been following the stowaway story," he said, as he bossed his Toyota Corolla around the airport.
"Anybody gone missing?" I asked.
"Yeah. A cleaner from Colnet. He went missing around the same time. Some [airport] workers were talking about it."
It was a scrap of information that felt like something solid after hours of fruitless questioning - and it gave us somewhere to start.
The pay is poor. Companies like Colnet offer their employees around 9,000 Kenyan shillings a month in take-home pay. It works out to roughly £2.25 a day. "[Employees] can't pay for good accommodation or places where there is security, running water... staff are fired before they hit six months [of service] because companies are supposed to offer fix-term contracts.
We reached out to a number of current and former workers at Colnet and met several at an Irish-themed bar called Craic, near the airport.
A women called Irene said she could help us. We have changed her name to protect her identity.
She told us her colleague at Colnet had gone missing at the end of June. His name was Paul Manyasi.
"The last time I saw him, we were at work, he suddenly disappeared, nobody knows where he went," she said.
Irene said she was told to clean inside the passenger terminal on 30 June while Paul was assigned to the area outside. At the end of their shift, she could not find him anywhere.
"I called his phone and it was off. When we came in the morning the following day the supervisor called us and told us there is somebody missing. [The supervisor had told them] We are not sure of the person so we keep it a secret until we know the person."
Irene told us that Paul was living in a slum called Makuru Kwa Njenga.
It is an overcrowded neighbourhood of some half a million people tucked behind a four-lane highway near the airport.
Paul shared a room with a man called Patrick and we spent several weeks trying to locate their shack.
We met Patrick after dark on a dead-end street and he told us that he had wrangled Paul a job at Colnet.
"Paul was a friend of mine," he told us. "We came from the same county, the same school and I was working at Colnet so I took him to the company and we started together."
We needed some additional support so we approached the Metropolitan Police in London. Was there anything they could possibly share?
To our surprise, the investigating team published an e-fit picture – or a computerised mock-up of what they thought the victim looked like before he fell from the plane.
They also provided us with some pictures of the clothing the stowaway had been wearing and images of personal possessions that were left in the landing compartment of the plane.
It was an important development although there was one piece of evidence that did not make sense.
The police included a picture of the letters "MCA", which had been sketched onto the strap of a well-worn bag.
We studied the letters closely but their meaning escaped us.
We went back to see Paul Manyasi's girlfriend, Irene. She had returned to the family home in rural Kenya and when we found her, she told us she would have a look at the photographs.
I began by showing her the e-fit picture.
"Does that look like Paul to you?"
"They look alike but [Paul] wasn't dark – not dark – but the face resembles [Paul]."
"What about this bag?" I inquired.
"Yes, hii bag ni yake [the bag is his]," she said in Swahili.
Irene continued as she pointed to the bottom of the bag.
"And it was written somewhere – it must be written somewhere here. MCA or something."
I inhaled deeply. This was it. If Irene could demystify the letters, we would be closer to solving the identity of the stowaway.
I passed her the Met Police's photograph of MCA scribbled on the strap.
"Yes, MCA, somewhere [on the bag]," she said.
"That is his bag?" I asked.
"Yes."
"What does it stand for?"
"Member of County Assembly," she answered. "He liked to be called that name. Like a nickname."
"Do you think Paul Manyasi is the stowaway?"
"Yes, according to these pictures," she said.
We went to the people who run Nairobi's international airport – the Kenya Airports Authority and asked them for them a response to our findings.
We asked them whether they agree with our conclusions about Paul Manyasi. Furthermore, we asked whether his presence as a stowaway on a passenger jet would constitute a security breach at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
They did not reply.
We also went to cleaning company Colnet. We asked if they could confirm that their 29-year-old worker went missing at the end of June.
They did not reply either.
There was one more stop we had to make.
We wanted to meet Paul Manyasi's parents, who reside in an impoverished region of western Kenya called Kakamega County.
But we were worried. What if the cleaning company or the Kenyan authorities had not said anything to them about their son?
Paul was Isaac's eldest son and he and his wife Janet have not heard a word from him since the beginning of July.
"Has anyone been in touch with you?" I asked.
"No one," he replied softly.
"Are you worried about him?"
"Of course," he said.
I took out the photographs from the Metropolitan Police and I asked if they recognised any of the stowaway's things.
Much like Irene, Paul's parents said the e-fit was similar but the skin colour was too dark. But they recognised his personal things.
"That one," said Isaac, as I showed him the picture of the stowaway's bag.
"He used to have it, he used to have a bag like that."
"You recognise it, do you?" I asked.
"Yes."
The bag, the sports shoes, a pair of red underwear – those were Paul's, they said.
The evidence now suggested that it was their son who fell from the airliner.
I asked the pair how they wanted to proceed but Mr Manyasi said there was nothing he could do. With a large family to feed, he could not afford to bring Paul home.
"Let him stay [in the UK]. Those are too many expenses. Soil is just soil."
"I would really love him to be buried here, but the expenses... It's just too expensive," whispered his mum, Janet.
There was something they wanted to show us before we left - a single photo of Paul, aged 15, dressed in his Sunday best. He looks smart and bright and handsome, as if a promising future seemingly awaits.
CREDITS:
Reporting by John Sparks, Africa correspondent
Kenya producer: Christabel Ligami
Additional production: Emily Jennings, Africa producer
Digital production: Philip Whiteside
Graphics: Brian Gillingham, Adam Wood
Pictures: Garwen McLuckie, Metropolitan Police, Getty, iStockphoto
>>> https://news.sky.com/story/who-was-the-man-who-fell-from-the-sky-11859868
It was sunny and warm on 30 June as residents in south London finished their lunch and unwound on a leisurely Sunday afternoon.
But the peace was shattered in Offerton Road with a terrifying thump.
A man occupied a crater in one of the back gardens after falling through the sky for a kilometre.
His lifeless frame had pulverised the concrete and mangled the lawn and he had barely missed a tenant on a sun-lounger.
A witness said the man looked like a "block of ice".
The locals were shocked and puzzled. Did he have a name? Where did he come from? Was he a stowaway on a passenger plane?
Had he risked his existence in a desperate attempt to improve it?
Sky News has spent the last few months trying to determine the identity of this individual and we now believe he is a 29-year-old who worked as an airport cleaner in Kenya. It had only taken 20 seconds or so for him to plummet from a Kenya Airways passenger plane.
We began our hunt at the biggest airport in Kenya on the assumption the stowaway had probably worked there.
I was assisted by local journalist Christabel Ligami and together we asked agents and cargo operators whether they knew of anyone who had gone missing.
It took us a couple of days, but we finally got a break from an Uber driver called Kamau.
"I've been following the stowaway story," he said, as he bossed his Toyota Corolla around the airport.
"Anybody gone missing?" I asked.
"Yeah. A cleaner from Colnet. He went missing around the same time. Some [airport] workers were talking about it."
It was a scrap of information that felt like something solid after hours of fruitless questioning - and it gave us somewhere to start.
The pay is poor. Companies like Colnet offer their employees around 9,000 Kenyan shillings a month in take-home pay. It works out to roughly £2.25 a day. "[Employees] can't pay for good accommodation or places where there is security, running water... staff are fired before they hit six months [of service] because companies are supposed to offer fix-term contracts.
We reached out to a number of current and former workers at Colnet and met several at an Irish-themed bar called Craic, near the airport.
A women called Irene said she could help us. We have changed her name to protect her identity.
She told us her colleague at Colnet had gone missing at the end of June. His name was Paul Manyasi.
"The last time I saw him, we were at work, he suddenly disappeared, nobody knows where he went," she said.
Irene said she was told to clean inside the passenger terminal on 30 June while Paul was assigned to the area outside. At the end of their shift, she could not find him anywhere.
"I called his phone and it was off. When we came in the morning the following day the supervisor called us and told us there is somebody missing. [The supervisor had told them] We are not sure of the person so we keep it a secret until we know the person."
Irene told us that Paul was living in a slum called Makuru Kwa Njenga.
It is an overcrowded neighbourhood of some half a million people tucked behind a four-lane highway near the airport.
Paul shared a room with a man called Patrick and we spent several weeks trying to locate their shack.
We met Patrick after dark on a dead-end street and he told us that he had wrangled Paul a job at Colnet.
"Paul was a friend of mine," he told us. "We came from the same county, the same school and I was working at Colnet so I took him to the company and we started together."
We needed some additional support so we approached the Metropolitan Police in London. Was there anything they could possibly share?
To our surprise, the investigating team published an e-fit picture – or a computerised mock-up of what they thought the victim looked like before he fell from the plane.
They also provided us with some pictures of the clothing the stowaway had been wearing and images of personal possessions that were left in the landing compartment of the plane.
It was an important development although there was one piece of evidence that did not make sense.
The police included a picture of the letters "MCA", which had been sketched onto the strap of a well-worn bag.
We studied the letters closely but their meaning escaped us.
We went back to see Paul Manyasi's girlfriend, Irene. She had returned to the family home in rural Kenya and when we found her, she told us she would have a look at the photographs.
I began by showing her the e-fit picture.
"Does that look like Paul to you?"
"They look alike but [Paul] wasn't dark – not dark – but the face resembles [Paul]."
"What about this bag?" I inquired.
"Yes, hii bag ni yake [the bag is his]," she said in Swahili.
Irene continued as she pointed to the bottom of the bag.
"And it was written somewhere – it must be written somewhere here. MCA or something."
I inhaled deeply. This was it. If Irene could demystify the letters, we would be closer to solving the identity of the stowaway.
I passed her the Met Police's photograph of MCA scribbled on the strap.
"Yes, MCA, somewhere [on the bag]," she said.
"That is his bag?" I asked.
"Yes."
"What does it stand for?"
"Member of County Assembly," she answered. "He liked to be called that name. Like a nickname."
"Do you think Paul Manyasi is the stowaway?"
"Yes, according to these pictures," she said.
We went to the people who run Nairobi's international airport – the Kenya Airports Authority and asked them for them a response to our findings.
We asked them whether they agree with our conclusions about Paul Manyasi. Furthermore, we asked whether his presence as a stowaway on a passenger jet would constitute a security breach at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
They did not reply.
We also went to cleaning company Colnet. We asked if they could confirm that their 29-year-old worker went missing at the end of June.
They did not reply either.
There was one more stop we had to make.
We wanted to meet Paul Manyasi's parents, who reside in an impoverished region of western Kenya called Kakamega County.
But we were worried. What if the cleaning company or the Kenyan authorities had not said anything to them about their son?
Paul was Isaac's eldest son and he and his wife Janet have not heard a word from him since the beginning of July.
"Has anyone been in touch with you?" I asked.
"No one," he replied softly.
"Are you worried about him?"
"Of course," he said.
I took out the photographs from the Metropolitan Police and I asked if they recognised any of the stowaway's things.
Much like Irene, Paul's parents said the e-fit was similar but the skin colour was too dark. But they recognised his personal things.
"That one," said Isaac, as I showed him the picture of the stowaway's bag.
"He used to have it, he used to have a bag like that."
"You recognise it, do you?" I asked.
"Yes."
The bag, the sports shoes, a pair of red underwear – those were Paul's, they said.
The evidence now suggested that it was their son who fell from the airliner.
I asked the pair how they wanted to proceed but Mr Manyasi said there was nothing he could do. With a large family to feed, he could not afford to bring Paul home.
"Let him stay [in the UK]. Those are too many expenses. Soil is just soil."
"I would really love him to be buried here, but the expenses... It's just too expensive," whispered his mum, Janet.
There was something they wanted to show us before we left - a single photo of Paul, aged 15, dressed in his Sunday best. He looks smart and bright and handsome, as if a promising future seemingly awaits.
CREDITS:
Reporting by John Sparks, Africa correspondent
Kenya producer: Christabel Ligami
Additional production: Emily Jennings, Africa producer
Digital production: Philip Whiteside
Graphics: Brian Gillingham, Adam Wood
Pictures: Garwen McLuckie, Metropolitan Police, Getty, iStockphoto
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