KNA – Nakuru County has announced plans to dispose of 49 unclaimed bodies currently held at public mortuaries if they remain unclaimed within 21 days.
The deceased have been lying in the County Referral and Teaching Hospital Mortuary and Annex PGH Public Mortuary for over three months, straining mortuary services.
A notice issued by County Chief Assistant Public Health Officer, Mary Ayabei, provided a detailed list of the unclaimed bodies, indicating the place of death, date, and cause of death.
The bodies comprise of 17 adults and 21 infants at the Public Mortuary (Annex PGH) and 11 adult bodies at Nakuru Teaching and Referral Hospital Mortuary.
The notice urged the public to identify and collect the bodies of relatives or acquaintances within the stipulated 21 days; failure to which the county would seek court authorisation to dispose of the unclaimed bodies.
Some of the bodies have been identified, while others remain unknown. Unidentified corpses were mostly recovered by police without documentation.
The County Government said it will first obtain a court order before disposal, in accordance with the Public Health Act Cap 242.
Ayabei stated that all available mechanisms to trace the next of kin have been exhausted.
“If the next of kin are not traced, disposal will occur after twenty-one days at the Nakuru South Cemetery,” the notice read.
Mortuary authorities periodically run public notices for the disposal of unclaimed bodies, after which the corpses are buried in public cemeteries or mass graves, often without rites. This process ensures space is available and prevents overcrowding of facilities.
The Public Health Act stipulates that no person shall keep a deceased in a morgue for more than 10 days. If a body remains unclaimed for 21 days, hospitals may dispose of it with court approval and after giving a 14-day public notice.
The causes of death for the unclaimed corpses include road accidents, murder, drowning, shooting, sudden death, abortion, and mob justice. A few cases are attributed to natural causes.
Nakuru County mortuaries typically receive between 200 and 300 unclaimed bodies annually.
Several reasons contribute to bodies remaining unclaimed. Some families lack funds to bury their deceased relatives, while others face cultural restrictions or land shortages.
Counselling psychologist, Ochieng Okuku, explained that a major factor is breakdown in communication, where relatives assume a loved one is alive because they have not been in contact, only to discover their kin’s body in a mortuary.
“Most unclaimed bodies are of unknown individuals who died unnaturally. Tracking their families is difficult, and police often cannot identify fingerprints of the deceased,” Okuku added.
Police play a critical role in fingerprint identification, which allows families to claim bodies.
Criminal investigation experts explained that postmortems are conducted by coroners, who investigate deaths occurring under unnatural or suspicious circumstances.
The coroner ensures families are informed before bodies are released for claim or disposal. Coroners generally do not intervene in cases of natural deaths where the deceased was receiving medical care.
Investigation of sudden or unexplained deaths in Kenya has historically been conducted through public inquests under Sections 385–387 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
In 2017, Parliament enacted the National Coroners’ Service Act, providing a framework for investigating reported deaths. However, implementation has been delayed due to legal uncertainty over which cabinet secretary should appoint the coroner-general and determine the terms of the service.
The Act transfers responsibility for investigating unnatural and violent deaths, including those in police custody or prison, from the police to the coroner-general—an independent office competitively appointed by the cabinet secretary responsible for justice, upon recommendation by the Public Service Commission.
Unclaimed bodies can also be legally obtained by medical schools, with approval from the Ministry of Health under the Anatomy Act Cap 249, for teaching and research purposes.
Nakuru County has cited significant costs in preserving uncollected bodies, sometimes extending up to four months.
