Police in western Kenya have discovered a mass grave, in which the remains of at least 33 bodies, mostly children, were found and authorities launched a nation-wide investigation to rule out foul play.
The bodies were found between March 24 and March 26 in a cemetery that is on church-owned property in Kericho, in western Kenya. The tip-off received by the police indicated that a dozen of people were being buried at the site and what they had assumed to be a couple of bodies was a much more gruesome find.
meanwhile, a church leader of National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK) talking to a local news media, denied links to the secret burial, making it unclear how the bodies came to be buried at the site that belongs to the church.
According to the officials there were “at least 25 children and several adults and cut up bodies placed in sacks,” and after the bodies had been discovered the government pathologists were called to take blood samples to determine what was the cause of death and detectives from the directorate of criminal investigations were asked to discover how the bodies were buried there.
Initial findings indicated that “the bodies had been transferred from a hospital mortuary in Nyamira County,” and according to Kenyan law the dead may be buried after a period of 14 days, but only with court permission and proper documentation of the dead body.
Detectives are trying to discover whether or not they followed proper procedure and whether or not the burials were legal. A public health official has been arrested regarding the bodies along with a cemetery attendant in what is thought to be abuse of office, disposing of bodies unlawfully and other violations. They are not looking in to whether there were more bodies in the ground than is actually being reported but some are believed to be from separate locations and from different times and can not determine how they arrived in that specific cemetery.
Local people and families are said to be outraged, saying the whole procedure was done in secret and were “transported and buried without heralding and in a rushed manner“. They are now demanding clarification as to who is behind the killings and the secret burial and as to why this whole procedure took place. It is not yet clear as to whether there were actually more than the expected amount of bodies, as some appear to be from a separate location and from different points of death.
The case is reminiscent of many other mass grave sites across Kenya since 2023 when there was the famous Paul Mackenzie‘s Shakahola case where there were hundreds of bodies found from cult like burials. Human rights groups also stated that there are often incidents reported from Kenya including unlawful disappearances, though it does not yet appear if this particular incident is linked.
Authorities claim to now focus on identifying all victims, discover how they died and why they were buried there without notifying families of the deceased. The investigation continues with more burial sites expected to be opened and body samples to be taken to determine how the deceased passed away.
