Late gospel singer Angela Chibalonza’s sister is dead. Mammy Runiga, who used to be Angela Chibalonza’s manager, collapsed in her Nyayo Estate home in Nairobi. According to Embakasi police OCPD Apollo Wanyonyi, the cause of death is not yet established but it is suspected that Runiga might have suffocated.
“We are yet to know how she died but the family says there was a jiko that was burning in the house. Experts are on the ground gathering more information,” Wanyonyi told, Runiga’s house girl, Everlyne Atieno, told the paper that the deceased was feeling cold and wanted to take a warm bath.
Atieno said that her boss then asked her to take a jiko the bathroom after which she went to take a bath. She was inside the bathroom for a while before one of her young daughters who needed to use the bathroom noticed that something was amiss, the paper reports.
The daughter then alerted Atieno who sought neighbours’ help to open the door; they found her motionless body on the bathroom floor. The neighbours, including gospel singer Solomon Mkubwa,rushed to the Kenyatta National Hospital where she was pronounced dead on arrival.
Mammy moved to Kenya with her elder sister Angela Chibalonza from DR Congo in 1997. Chibalonza died in a road accident on the Nakuru-Nairobi highway in September 2008.
