Opinion - Why Burying Beryl Odinga at Kang’o Ka Jaramogi Feels So Right

30 November 2025 - There is something profoundly moving about the Odinga family’s decision to lay Beryl Lilian Achieng’ Mungwari Odinga to rest at Kang’o Ka Jaramogi, the ancestral burial ground in Bondo where her father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, and her nephew Fidel already lie.

For a super woman who spent the greater part of her life far from home, this is more than tradition. It can be described as an act of gentle reclamation.

Beryl, Raila Odinga’s younger sister, passed away on 25 November 2025 at the age of 73.

Her story is not widely told, yet it carries the weight of quiet courage.

She endured domestic violence in a marriage to the late Gem MP Aggrey Ambala, violence so severe that her brothers once physically removed her from harm’s way (Senator Oburu Oginga recounts the episode with painful clarity in his memoir 'In the Shadow of My Father').

Eventually she fled Kenya with her two young children, sought asylum in Zimbabwe, and built a new life there – first as a municipal clerk, later as the owner of a modest restaurant in Harare.

Zimbabwe became her refuge and, for decades, her home.

She later lived a quiet life when she returned to the country. She worked in the Nairobi County's water and sewerage section during the era of Governor Mike Sonko, who said she worked diligently.

She died after a period of being on and off because of illness.

In death, she is coming back to the soil of her birth.

Raila Odinga Junior, tasked by family elder Dr Oburu Oginga with coordinating the funeral, has confirmed that the chosen resting place for his aunt will be the family cemetery.

Consultations continue, and the date will be announced once everything is settled, but the destination is no longer in doubt.