Pay us more to exhume bodies and pave way for SGR line, Kwale villagers plead

Villagers at Kafuduni-B in Kinango, Kwale County, at a dug up grave. The remains from this grave were dug up and reburied elsewhere. [PHOTO: MAARUFU MOHAMED/STANDARD]

KWALE: One Kenya Railways engineer is at the centre of an unusual exercise outside the complex statistical and impassive computations he accustomed to.  Engineer Maxwell Mengich says the Kenya Railways has been assigned to supervise the exhumation of graves  in Kafuduni “B” location of Kwale County and elsewhere to make way for the Standard Gauge Railway which will snake its way through thousands of villages across the country. Kenya Railway will be compensating these villagers on behalf of the government without interfering with the rituals of how the exhumations will be carried out, Mengich says.

“These are cultural issues in which we cannot get involved in,” Mengich observed, but he assured the affected families that they would be paid for each grave that was dug up.