The International Rescue Committee is saddened to report the tragic news that Dr. Dominic Mutisya, a member of the IRC’s staff in Kenya, died December 2, 2010, when the IRC vehicle in which he was traveling rolled over on a road 25 miles outside the town of Lodwar in northern Kenya. Five other IRC staff members in the vehicle suffered injuries of varying severity and were evacuated by air to Nairobi, where they remain hospitalized. The cause of the accident has not yet been determined.
The passengers in the vehicle were returning to the Kakuma refugee camp from Lodwar, where they had attended a four-day IRC workshop.
Dr. Mutisya, 32, was a clinical services manager at the Kakuma refugee camp and had joined the IRC on September 20, 2010. He was single and is survived by his parents, a brother and four sisters.
George Rupp, president of the IRC, said Dr. Mutisya’s death “is a loss not only for his friends, family and colleagues, but also for the people of Kenya and for the medical profession.”
The injured staff members include three Kenyan men and two women, one a Kenyan and the other an American. All are recovering from their injuries.
The IRC expressed gratitude to AMREF (the African Medical Research Foundation) and Medecins sans Frontieres for their rapid response in making aircraft available to transport the IRC’s injured staff members to Nairobi.
Dr. Mutisya received a bachelor of medicine degree in 2004 from the University of Nairobi, Kenya. Prior to joining the IRC in September, he worked for over six years in health care service delivery and management at the Embu Provincial Hospital and Kathiani Sub District Hospital with Kenya’s Ministry of Health.
Colleagues said he was well liked by fellow staff members and refugees alike. Since his arrival in September, he had launched initiatives to ensure the quality of clinical services provided to the Kakuma camp’s refugees.
Kellie Leeson, head of the IRC’s operations in Kenya, said, “Dominic was a kind and caring physician, and he will be greatly missed.”
