Haven for police abduction squads? Questions linger on why bodies are dumped at City mortuary
The mortuary, which was renamed in 2023 to repaint its ‘bad image’, centre of focus amid efforts by families to trace their loved ones
Kenyans, who are unlucky to die at the hands of police officers or city criminals, will always end up at the Nairobi Funeral Home, formerly City Mortuary.
The facility also holds bodies of persons found dead in unclear circumstances or in tragedies such as road accidents, collapsed buildings or terrorist attacks and whose identity cannot be immediately established.
Others are bodies of patients who die in the various hospitals around the city whose relatives cannot be traced will always end up here too together with other victims of road accidents, collapsed buildings, and flooding.
However, the facility, which is the biggest in the capital, has found itself in the spotlight recently following the abductions, enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings denting efforts initiated in 2023 to repaint its ‘bad image.’
The Nairobi Funeral Home now stands accused of helping Killer police and rogue security agents to get away with cold-blooded murders and extra-judicial killings of people opposing the William Ruto-led administration, especially the young people.
Dozens of lifeless bodies of people who were reported missing last year without trace have been found lying in the cold storage of the city morgue.
The latest victims are Justus Mutumwa and Martin Mwau whose remains were discovered three weeks ago after they went missing between December 16 and 17 last year.
The families of Steve Mbisi and Kalani Muema who were friends of the two also stepped at the funeral home seeking answers and confirmations to the cruel closure.
They were summoned to the facility to have a look at the bodies at the morgue if they resembled those of their missing loved ones.
“We were told to come at 10 am but nothing has happened,” a frustrated family member to Mbisi previously stated.
In the long run, they left after waiting for hours exhausted with no closure nor truth with just many more questions.
In a conflicting revelation, the police told the courts that the bodies of Mutumwa and Mwau had been at the morgue since December but when the families were visiting the parlor, they never found them as they were chasing dead ends for weeks raising queries on why the bodies were only discovered when the police and DCI bosses appeared in court and why the revelations of the bodies being at the morgue for over a month were not made early enough.
Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna has accused the administration of the city morgue together with the Governor Johnson Sakaja-led administration of being complicit in hiding the bodies of Kenyans allegedly abducted and killed by police.
“Nairobi City Mortuary, its management and the County Government are complicit in the abduction and killing of Kenyans. How is it the bodies of the men from Mlolongo have been there since December 18 and when families visited the facility, they couldn’t find them?” the city senator questioned.
“It is clear the management is in cahoots with the abductors and must be held to account.”
However, Chief Officer in Charge of Public Health Tom Nyakaba, who oversees the funeral home, defends the facility, stating that if the bodies are not collected from various parts of the city many dead bodies would lie in the streets.
He dismisses the allegations of collusion saying the city county government led by Sakaja does not have an interest in dead bodies.
“We do not have an interest in dead bodies. Our role is to preserve and give them dignity. If bodies are not brought here, we would have many bodies lying in the streets of Nairobi,” Nyakaba states.
Examples of notable cases of people traced to the morgue include the late Chris Msando, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) IT manager, who was murdered just days before the 2017 General Election.
His body, which had signs of torture, had been collected in a forest.
Msando was responsible for overseeing the electronic voting system, and his murder raised suspicions of foul play related to the elections.
Human rights lawyer Willie Kimani, his client Josephat Mwenda, and their taxi driver Joseph Muiruri were abducted and murdered by police officers in June 2016.
Their bodies were found in a river, and they were brought to the mortuary, where autopsies confirmed the brutality of their deaths, sparking widespread outrage and protests.
As families mourn and questions persist, how many stories have been buried in the city’s cold rooms, and how many more will never be told?
In October 2024, police officers were blocked from delivering unidentified bodies to the City Mortuary in a standoff between the Nairobi City County Government and the national police service.
The County Government insisted that the morgue was filled, a move that impeded police work as officers take bodies collected from scenes of crime and accidents to the morgue.
