No room for the dead as Nakuru County declares two cemeteries full

Nakuru County has run out of space to bury the dead. Subsequently the County Executive in-charge of Health, Dr Mungai Kabii, has declared the North and South cemeteries full though a notice issued on June 2.  Similar notices have been issued for the public cemeteries in Naivasha and Molo sub-counties.

Kabii issued the notice in accordance to the Public Health Act which authorises his office to shut down cemeteries that are full and impose a Sh1,500 fine on those who continue to bury the dead in these graveyards.

Last year, the county allocated Sh84 million for the purchase of an alternative graveyard and beefed up the allocation by another Sh30 million this year.

But getting land may prove to be quite difficult because the National Environment Act requires that an impact assessment be conducted before such acquisition is approved by those living around the proposed site.

The law also requires that a soil type assessment be done to establish whether it can allow for speedy body decomposition. The position of the water table beneath the ground also has to be appraised.

 Because space is lacking, some of the bereaved are now burying their dead on pathways, while others are concreting graves so that they are not resold.

Those who wish to bury the dead pay Sh20,000 to buy space on one part of the cemetery, and Sh3,000 in the southern part of the graveyard.

Last week Kabii said the quest to get alternative land that can be used for the next 10 years would continue. “Our aim is to get not less than 100 acres to allow for the construction of  a chapel near the graveyard.”

Nakuru Town East MP David Gikaria and Bahati MP Kimani Ngunjiri have complained that the matter has remained unresolved for far too long.

Gikaria says he had issued a notice to close the graveyard in 2009 when he served as a mayor in the defunct Nakuru Municipality between 2008 and 2010. “However, the council was broke and could not afford to buy land to expand the graveyard.”

Ngunjiri complains that bodies are now being buried atop others.

Local people are now being asked to consider cremating the dead, but this is meeting resistance, says Kabii. “This is a cosmopolitan region with people from different ethnic groups who have different customs. It would be difficult convince them to cremate the bodies of their loved ones,” Kabii said.

The Nakuru North cemetery was opened in 1918 and was then used to bury soldiers who had been killed during the First World War.