Five children in Iowa are now without both of their parents after their dad died in a car crash just months after losing their mom, People reports.
Bazirake Kariya, 30, and his wife Zabayo Bigirimana died five months apart from each other. Back in August, Bigirimana died while giving birth to their newborn daughter, leaving behind her husband and their four boys, KCCI reports.
On New Year’s Eve, Kariya died in a car crash, Des Moines Register reports. Kariya was driving on the highway in Marshall County on his way to work in Marshalltown.
The roadways had become icy due to freezing rain the day of Kariya’s crash. After rescuers were able to locate and pull Kariya’s body from the vehicle, he had already succumbed to his injuries.
Kariya’s family moved to Des Moines two years ago as refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Eugene Kiruhura, the family’s pastor and senior pastor at Shalom Covenant Church said he’s known the family close to a year.
Kiruhura told WHO-13 that the children are taking it “very hard.”
“They’ve been crying all the time, saying ‘We lost mother. We lost father,'” he said.
In addition to the couple’s newborn, their four boys, ages 2 to 10, are living with Kariya’s parents who don’t speak English and are without work.
Kiruhura set up a GoFundMe page to help raise money for the five children and cover their father’s funeral costs. The donations have already exceeded the $200,000 goal.
