Mass burial for 292 bodies lying in city mortuaries

The Nairobi County been granted permission to dispose 250 unclaimed bodies after relatives failed to identify them. The county had published a seven-day notice asking members of the public to visit three public mortuaries in Nairobi where 292 bodies were lying unclaimed.However, by the lapse of the week that was given, only 42 bodies had been identified among those lying at City mortuary, Mama Lucy Kibaki and Mbagathi hospital morgues.In a statement, the Health and Wellness department said it had been granted their wish by the court to dispose the bodies.

"The Nairobi City County in Miscellaneous Application 2 of 2023 came up for mention on February, 2023," reads the statement from the health department."The city court granted the health sector directions for disposal of the unclaimed bodies in accordance with the public health act and the bodies were disposed on February 10," added the statement.

All the 292 bodies were lying in the morgues with the status of their fingerprints indicating that they are untraced.The anticipated mass burial of bodies comes three months after the county appealed to the public to identify 236 bodies that were lying in the public morgues unclaimed.Most of the corpses were marked as unknown after being recovered by police who found no identification clues to help them trace relatives. In November last year, Kenyatta National Hospital made a similar appeal of disposing 233 unclaimed bodies.