Bishop Elisha Juma and Reverend Mary Juma of the Kenya Assemblies of God in Tudor, Mombasa County have asked that they be allowed to bury their son, even if on American soil after he succumbed to Covid-19 on March 28, 2020.
The family had appealed to President Uhuru Kenyatta to intervene in retrieving the body of their son after they were given a 24-hour ultimatum to collect the body or its cremated.
The pastor's son, Peter Juma,38, who had been living in New York, worked as a paramedic at a hospital based in New York prior to his demise and his family has asked President Kenyatta to help them in airlifting his remains back to the country for a proper burial. Juma was also a preacher in the US following in the footsteps of his parents.
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"He was a great son and a servant of God. He was respectful to both us and his siblings. He always adviced and encouraged them," Peter's mother stated.
He was pronounced dead a week after he had been taken ill for the deadly virus.
The US has in the recent past recorded surging numbers in confirmed Covid-19 cases, leading in infections in the world, with New York alone recording over 46,000 cases. The country has since moved to hasten burial processions with morgues decrying full capacities.
Bishop Juma contacted US authorities and was informed that if not collected by Thursday, April 2, their son would be moved up for cremation.
"It is our wish to give our son a decent send- off and our only plea to the Government of Kenya and the United States is for us to be allowed to at least view the body and give our son a decent burial," Juma pleaded.
"However we have been told that mortuaries in the US are full to capacity and further preservation of bodies is no longer a priority," he added.
Members of the family who were interviewed by the news outlet stated that customarily, it would only be appropriate that Bishop Juma and Mary get to pay their last respects to their son.
“It will be very bad if our firstborn son is cremated and we will never see him again. We want to pay him his last respects,” the family stated.
The family's chance to bury their son is further strained by the ban of all international flights in and out of the country by the government as a measure to tame the spread of Covid-19.
“What we are sure of, is that we cannot travel due to the ban on international flights. We are trying to exhaust all options to see what will work. We are reaching out to the embassy to seeing the options they will provide,” the family stated.
Peter's sister Joyce Larry Mweti who also lives in the US along with a number of other relatives have not been allowed to see the body of the deceased.
