Huruma mother seeks her lost son among the dead

Flora Ajisa and her daughter Florence Asila when she visited the Standard Group offices.[Willis Awandu, Standard]

The life of a family in Huruma Estate in Nairobi has turned into a nightmare after failing to trace their son who mysteriously disappeared from home on Monday this week.

Flora Ajisa, 55, the mother of the missing Fred Muhanji, said she had visited hospitals and mortuaries in the city.

Accompanied by her daughter, 25-year-old Florence Asila, Ms Ajisa said her son Muhanji, 32, left the house in Huruma on Monday morning for a stroll but he did not return in the evening as usual.

At the City Mortuary where we encountered Ajisa on Wednesday, we counted 12 bodies that had been brought in by police from Friday last week, to Sunday as a result of the chaos that rocked parts of the city.

Ajisa said her son was an Economics student at University of Nairobi, but had developed some mental problem three weeks ago.

Sometimes he would stay away from home the whole day and return late into the night. His condition made him collect garbage, talk to himself and even walk naked.

Access denied

“I am really worried about the whereabouts of my son. I have looked for him in various hospitals and mortuaries in the city without success,” Ajisa says.

At the City Mortuary they were denied access to see some of the bodies that the police had brought from the hotspots in the city. The attendants told her that no body had been collected from Huruma.

According to Funeral superintendent Patrick Kibuga, some of the bodies brought by police had gunshot wounds and but were yet to be identified by relatives.

“Our responsibility is to preserve the bodies whenever they are brought into the mortuary. It’s the work of the police to facilitate identification and they are the ones keeping details regarding the victims,” he said.

“We are also aware that the Independent Policing Oversight Authority is already investigating the matter,” Kibuga added.

18 bodies

Kibuga said of the 12, six were brought from Kamukunji Police Station, four were collected from Riverside in Kariobangi and two among them a woman were from Kibera.

And yesterday Chief Government Pathologist Johansen Oduor and Dr Sylvester Maingi conducted a postmortem on the bodies in the presence of the relatives. Dr Oduor confirmed that he conducted post postmortems on 18 bodies.

He said 10 bodies had gunshot wounds and eight bodies suffered sharp force trauma (stab wounds, incised wounds, and chop wounds).

According to the records at the mortuary seen by The Metropolitan, all the victims were listed as unknown but the causes of death of some victims were listed as mob injustice, murder and shooting incidents.

Kibuga said one body was collected by relatives on Tuesday after the postmortem. A source at the mortuary who asked not to be named said police booked the bodies unaccompanied by post-mortem forms (P23A), which indicate details of the victims.

There have been conflicting reports on the death toll from the weekend violence after it was reported more than 20 victims were shot dead by police during the recent Opposition demos.