Two Kenyan mothers died after childbirth in Kilifi County as healthcare gaps and funding cuts leave rural women without adequate care
Penina Zawadi, 29, died on June 23 after bleeding heavily following a cesarean section at Malindi Hospital in Kenya's coastal Kilifi County; she spent four hours awaiting a referral to a larger facility before her death days later in intensive care. A second mother, Halima Ramadhan, 27, died in March after delivering twins, with her family learning the cause — heart failure following high blood pressure — only when a reporter helped them read the discharge summary. Kilifi County recorded 532 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 2022, well above Kenya's national average of 355.
Single source · Not corroborated
Penina Zawadi handed her jewelry to her mother before being wheeled into surgery, saying she would have a safe delivery. An hour after the cesarean section at Malindi Hospital, her newborn son was brought out; Zawadi was not. Her family said she bled heavily for four hours at Malindi before being transferred on a potholed road to Kilifi County Referral Hospital, where surgeons removed her uterus in a last-resort procedure. She died in intensive care on June 23, 2026.
Kilifi County, on Kenya's Indian Ocean coast, recorded 532 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in the most recent government data from 2022, compared with a national average of 355. The leading causes, according to reproductive rights organizations cited by the Associated Press, are severe bleeding, obstructed labor, high blood pressure conditions such as preeclampsia, and infections from unsafe abortions. The county government reported 81 maternal deaths in the prior year and a half, describing the figure as progress, and pointed to an expansion of healthcare facilities.
A second case documented by the AP illustrates a separate dimension of the crisis: a communication breakdown between hospitals and families. Halima Ramadhan, 27, died in March after delivering twins a week past her due date. Her mother-in-law, Mariam Kazungu, said nursing staff repeatedly asked her to purchase medicine from a private pharmacy during Ramadhan's three weeks in intensive care, providing no explanation of her condition. The family learned the cause of death — heart failure following high blood pressure — only after an AP journalist helped them read the discharge summary. The Kilifi County government did not respond to the AP's questions about either death.