By Peter Ochieng
Burial date of the late Nation Media Group (NMG) journalist Rita Tinina has been revealed.
According to a death and funeral announcement, Tinina will be buried on Wednesday, March 27, in Narok county.
The funeral service and burial will be held at their home in Noosupeni Farm Olokirikirai, Narok from 10.00am.
Two days before the burial, On March 25, 2024, there will be a requiem mass at Holy Family Basilica, Nairobi.
The slain journalist was the beloved daughter of the late Dominic and the late Mary Yiapan. “She was the mother of Mia Malaikah and loving partner of Robert Nagila,” the announcement reads.
Rita was found dead on Sunday, March 17, in her Kileleshwa house. Results of a postmortem conducted on March 19 at Umash Funeral Home indicated that she died of severe pneumonia.
The autopsy was conducted by government pathologist Peter Ndegwa, in the presence of the family pathologist.
Family spokesperson Timothy Njaga said they were satisfied with the results.
“We had come here to witness the postmortem and it was completed by Dr Ndegwa and the family pathologist. We have been given the results that the late Rita died of severe pneumonia,” he said.
Tinina’s death was announced by her boss, Nation Media Group (NMG) Editor-in-Chief, Joe Ageyo.
Ageyo said he first crossed paths with Rita over 20-years ago, before striking a working partnership at NTV, KTN and then at NTV.
He revealed that she was to make her on air debut this week, since rejoining NTV in October, 2023.
“In spite of her impressive professional achievements and profile, Rita kept her feet firmly on the ground, and her life free of drama. She took every new task with greater enthusiasm than the previous one,” Ageyo said.
“She mentored younger journalists with a gentle nudge and expressed her displeasure with a smile. She eschewed office politics and delivered on her tasks with purpose and dignity.”
“Rita called me Onditi – that middle name I rarely use and I called her ‘Masai’, with a deliberately heavy Luo accent and we’d both have a good laugh. That time she probably wanted to take a few days off work and needed to convince me that I would miss nothing in her absence. By then, she would have planned, shot and edited enough stories to cover the entire period of her break,” he added.
Many have mourned her as a diligent journalist whose proffessionalism was on another level.
