The Nairobi Metropolitan Service in a public notice published in the local dailies on Wednesday, March 16, has asked Kenyans to claim dead bodies from city mortuaries.
Kenyans have been given a seven-day period to claim the bodies failure to which NMS will seek authority to dispose them.
105 of the unclaimed bodies lie at the City Mortuary,11 at the Mama Lucy Hospital Funeral Home and three lie at the Mbagathi Hospital Funeral Home.
The notice includes the admission number of the deceased, the date of admission, name of the deceased, police station where the case was reported and the cause of death.
Some of the deceased bodies have been identified as unknown female or unknown male because their names are not known. For those whose names are known, the notice has their names for easier identification.
The cause of death for the 119 deceased include accidents, shooting, natural death, drowning, murder, mob justice among others.
The notice also lists down police stations where the cases of the unidentified bodies were reported.
In the event bodies are not collected, the law requires that the concerned authority should bury the dead in public cemeteries according to the local authority’s provision.
Reason why bodies stay in mortuaries unclaimed include lack of finances to clear hospital bills and also cases such as kidnappings where families are not aware of the where about of their loved ones.
This is, however, not the first time NMS has advertised about collection of dead bodies. In May 2020, NMS appealed to members of the public to identify bodies which had overstayed in city morgues.
