The fate of baby Satrin Osinya, who has now become a household name across Kenya following the brutal terror attack at the Joy of Christ Church in Mombasa, will be known in two weeks time according to doctors.

Baby Satrin, who turns one year in two months, has a bullet lodged dangerously in his right side of the brain and doctors believe that the bullet in the baby’s head is the same that killed the mother while she shielded her son from the attacker’s bullets. According to x-ray scans, the bullet scraped the baby’s skull and lodged on the right side of the head leaving the boy’s brain swollen.

After being safely airlifted to the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi by Amref Flying Doctors yesterday afternoon where baby Satrin is set to undergo surgery, neurosurgeon specialists in charge of his operation maintained that conducting a surgery immediately would lead to complications that might cause damage to the baby’s brain thus they have to keep him under observation until two weeks when it would be safer to remove the bullet.

“It will take a span of one to two weeks before we remove the bullet because his brain is still swollen and conducting an immediate surgery might come with some serious side effects but his condition is stable,” said Dr Mwangi Gighuru, KNH Head of neurosurgery, adding that it’s a good thing that the bullet is lodged on the right side of the brain and not the left which has more vital functions.

The 10 month old baby’s predicament brought the nation to tears when a photo of him in a blood drenched shirt, frightfully clung unto the arms of his 13 year old brother Moses Gift, made the front page of the Standard Newspaper.

Moses who had attended church together with baby Satrin and their mother, who died on the spot as she shielded her young son from the bullets with her body, walked to where the mother was lying in a pool of blood after the ordeal and carried his young brother who was bleeding profusely to safety.

GOVERNMENT TO MEET MEDICAL COSTS

The Government has pledged to meet all medical costs of Satrin Osinya. According to State House Digital Media Director Dennis Itumbi, the government will offer financial support towards the treatment of the boy who has drawn global attention.

12 Doctors at Kenyatta National Hospital will undertake the oeprtaion that will determine the fate of young Master Satrin.

Baby Satrin’s story is indeed a sad tale that bares the extreme depths that terrorists will go just to have their way and not even children or ‘holy grounds’ are spared of this brutality. Last year, a child died and score of others were injured when a grenade was hurled at a Sunday school in Nairobi’s St. Polycarp Church in Juja Road estate by what officials termed as Al-shabaab sympathizers.

In September last year, several children died and others were injured in the Westgate mall siege. Judging from such merciless killings that seem to target the most vulnerable members of the society, it’s apparent that such cold hearted individuals have no boundaries.

INSECURITY

The high level of insecurity being witnessed in the country lately is alarming not forgetting the terror attacks especially in the county’s capital Nairobi and in Mombasa. The government must stay vigilant and beef up security before things get out of hand.

It’s bad enough when scores of Kenyans have to worry about where their next meal will come from following soaring inflation that has pushed up the cost of living and even much worse when we have to live in fear of our lives, wondering where the terrorist will strike next.

Read more about how your taxes are being spent at this time of rising costs to everyday essentials in this article: ‘Blatant waste of taxpayer money as public wage bill soars’. For the Auditor-General’s findings on how much money our government wastes, read ‘Auditor-General says up to 30% of govt. budget is wasted annually’.