Confusion has hit Kathera village in Embu East sub-county after a family postponed the burial of an 82-year-old woman at the last moment claiming the morgue issued another family with the body yesterday.
The drama started when members of the family who had gone to collect the body at the morgue were shocked upon realising that the body of their kin was missing and they were given the wrong one.
They then informed the mortuary attendants who later told them that they had mistakenly issued the body to another family yesterday.
“They gave us the wrong body and upon pushing them to tell us where the body of our grandmother was they told us they had mistakenly issued the body to another family,” Thomas Kinyua a relative.
The family wondered how their kin’s body was issued to another family accusing the mortuary attendant of failing to ensure proper labelling of the bodies preserved in the facility.
“We looked at the foreign body that we had been given and it was not that of our kin, our grandmother had white hair but the one we were given is a person in her 40s,” he said.
At the deceased’s homestead, everybody was shocked by the developments as all the burial preparations were over and the grave had been dug.
Linus Njagi, son of the deceased woman said that they had already hired and paid for vehicles to aid in the transportation of relatives to and from the mortuary but said now the cancellation has caused a lot of financial loss.
Embu East sub-county deputy county commissioner Jane Waruige while confirming the incident said she advised the affected family to report the matter to Runyenjes police station and move to court to obtain a court order so they can be permitted to exhume the body from where it has mistakenly been buried.
“Today a family went to Embu morgue but unfortunately found the body of their kin missing after it was mistakenly exchanged with another one, I have advised them to seek a court order in order to facilitate exhumation,” Waruige said.
