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.
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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
