Family protests secret cremation of Kenyan engineer who died in Mozambique

A family in Vihiga County is demanding urgent investigations into the death of their relative, whose body was cremated in Maputo, Mozambique, under disputed circumstances.

Robert Moses Magotsi, a South Africa-based engineer and entrepreneur, reportedly collapsed at his home on October 11, 2025, after a morning run and was later pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.

However, relatives allege that his partner, Victoria Wanjiku, cremated his body without informing them and disposed of his ashes in the Pacific Ocean.

The family said they first learned of Magotsi’s death from his South African business partner and from Wanjiku, who had been living with him in Maputo. They claim that as they were making arrangements to repatriate the body to Nairobi for burial in Kitale, Wanjiku hurriedly cremated the remains and sold some of the engineer’s properties. She is also accused of allegedly forging a Sh50 million life insurance policy to name herself as the beneficiary.

No arrests made

Despite reporting the matter to the CID in Maputo, the family says no arrests have been made.

“At the time of his demise, Robert was working as planning manager of Cape Town City and owned 51 per cent shares of a solar plant in Limpopo,” the family said.

“He held both Kenyan and South African citizenship and was married to a Kenyan woman with whom they lived in South Africa. His death occurred nine days before his 55th birthday.”

The family also raised concerns about Wanjiku’s conduct, including the sudden disappearance of Magotsi’s Facebook account, her blocking of some relatives on social media and her inclusion in a Sh6.65-million-rand (Sh50.9 million) life insurance policy.

Symbolic burial

Forty-two days after his death, relatives held a symbolic burial in Kitale, placing flowers at a site where he would have been interred next to his late mother, Alice Limo. By then, Wanjiku had posted a video on Facebook showing the disposal of Magotsi’s ashes in the Pacific Ocean.

“According to his wishes, his ashes now lie in the sea. The serene, endless waters of Bali received him with peace. He loved the ocean deeply, and its beauty was reflected in the life he lived,” Wanjiku captioned the video posted on November 15.

The family expressed anger that the cremation took place without their knowledge or the presence of Magotsi’s biological children.

“She’s working so hard to convince the world that this is what the man wanted,” Pamellah Nyawade, a cousin of Magotsi, said.

However, in an interview with the Daily Nation on November 28, Wanjiku said the cremation reflected Magotsi’s instructions.

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• cross-border justice
• Robert Moses Magotsi
• Family protests secret cremation of Kenyan engineer who died in Mozambique
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“Cremation was done according to his wishes, which everybody who matters to him knows: his business partner, his best friend, even his family knows. It is not out of the ordinary. Even I, my own mother was cremated. These things, when you want them to happen, you make the people around you know,” she said.

Disputed explanation

The family disputed this explanation, noting that Magotsi, known for his active lifestyle, was healthy and had gone jogging on the morning of his death.

“If somebody has an active lifestyle and goes jogging about an hour, you can’t even move from your sofa to the dining table with that kind of heart condition,” Jacob Motanya, Magotsi’s step-brother, said.

He added that he had received misleading information about the cremation schedule.

“My plan was to travel to Mozambique two days before the post-mortem… Only to get information from Lucky [Khumalo, Robert’s business partner] that Victoria had cremated Robert. It was deliberate misinformation,” he said.

Dr Joshua Amwayi, Magotsi’s cousin, detailed his relative’s assets, saying, “He had a total of 13 apartments… We can put this asset value to a tune of Sh300 million. Regarding his stake in Mwangaza, the solar power company they were setting up, after feasibility studies and land negotiations, it was just about to take off, in the tune of Sh340 million.”

Life insurance policy

He also questioned Wanjiku’s inclusion in the life insurance policy before she met Magotsi.

“Victoria and Robert got to know each other in February 2024. However, in the insurance policy, Beverly [estranged wife] was replaced by Victoria in 2023. How?” he posed.

Magotsi was also a poet, publishing his debut collection, Troubled Heart, under the pen name Sankara Berhane Sellasie in 2023. The poems explored death, including reflections on life insurance, such as: “I know I am only, but a wallet… If I die, insurance will simply refill the wallet.”

Wanjiku, a mother of four and author of The Soft Place after the Storm, said she met Magotsi in 2023 and that he helped her recover from personal challenges.

Blocked some family members

She explained that she blocked some family members to protect herself while grieving.

“…some people need not only to be blocked, but they also need to be thrown blocks at… I had to put my grief aside to fight relatives who thought I had something to do with my own spouse’s death. I was already in pain, already destroyed and helpless and alone in a foreign land with 4 kids and a dead spouse, but I needed extra energy to fight these people,” she said.

Wanjiku also defended cremating her spouse, noting that Magotsi’s cause of death had already been verified by the Maputo DCI as natural.

“Because he died on his way to the hospital, you needed to find out the cause of death. And he died of natural causes,” she said.

She added that all key people were informed about his cremation plans.

The family also questioned the authenticity of the post-mortem report provided by Wanjiku, which was reportedly handwritten in Portuguese.

“It’s not signed, not stamped. It could be written by anyone,” Motanya said.

The family has now appealed to the Kenyan government to engage Mozambican authorities to investigate the circumstances of Magotsi’s death, the rapid cremation of his body and the alleged mismanagement of his estate.