Police face hard time while booking body at Tigoni mortuary

Police from Limuru faced hard times on Friday morning while trying to book an unidentified body at Tigoni mortuary in Kiambu County.

For hours after picking the body at about 1am yesterday in Kamandura area along the Nairobi-Nakuru highway, the officers held on to the body as the management declined telling the officers that the morgue does not receive unidentified bodies.

They were then forced to transport the body to Nairobi City Mortuary in search of an alternative facility.

But on arrival, they were informed that the mortuary was not receiving bodies from outside Nairobi County and were advised to return the body to Kiambu County.

Police say they sought assistance within Kiambu but were referred back to a mortuary within their own jurisdiction, leaving them with no option but to return to Tigoni.

There it is reported that at some point, they forcefully opened the gate amid a confrontation with hospital management that temporarily disrupted before the body was accepted.

Limuru Sub-County Police Commander Mary Gachie termed the incident unfortunate, saying the officers had spent more than nine hours searching for a facility willing to admit the body adding that this was not the first incident.

“What has happened does not paint a good picture on how agencies should work with one another, therefore I’m appealing to the county government to work with us,” she stated

“From our preliminary investigations the body of the body belonged to young person who was tortured but it seems that it did not happen at spot where it was recovered,” the Sub-County Commander said

Limuru Nominated MCA Pacifica Ongecha called on the Kiambu County Department of Health to issue clear operational guidelines on how police officers should hand over bodies to county health facilities.

Ongecha urged the county government to strengthen coordination between health facilities and security agencies by establishing clear procedures for receiving bodies.