Confusion as court gives orders to exhume body of 7-month-old girl in Kirinyaga

A family in Kirinyaga has obtained court orders to have the body of a seven month old girl exhumed on Monday, August 2, a week after it had been buried at Riakiania village, Ndia Constituency within Kirinyaga County.

This is after a family from Kanyeki-ini ward in Kirinyaga
Central Constituency claimed that the body of the infant is theirs.

The family of Denis Ndegwa and Purity Wangari from Kiangungu
village in Kanyeki-ini, said that they found their child’s body missing when
they went to pick it from Kerugoya Level 4 Hospital Mortuary on Thursday 29
July.

Speaking to K24 Digital, Ndegwa said that the body of his child had been mistakenly handed over to another family that had also lost their baby.

 “The mortuary
management could have simply called and inform us about the mix-up. It is sad
that they waited until the burial day to reveal the shocking news to us,”
Wangari, the mother of the deceased said.

They had already planned for the burial ceremony but they were
forced to postpone the sendoff ceremony after learning about the mix up.

The family instead planted a banana plant to avoid the risk
of bad luck that may strike the family if the grave remained open after the
funeral was postponed.

“We have incurred heavy losses. Our relatives had come from
as far as Nairobi for the burial but we had no other option but to postpone
it,” she said.

Charity Wangui, the grandmother to the diseased child said
that they spent the better part of Thursdays day at the hospital premises
waiting for any information regarding where the body might have been taken to.

It was later found out that the body had been picked by another family from the mortuary on Monday July 26 and taken to Riakiania village where it was buried last Monday.

It is said that the Riakiania family had lost a nine days
old infant and collected the wrong body from the Kerugoya Hospital Mortuary