A family in Othaya, Nyeri County, was forced to cancel its burial plans at the last minute after they found the body of their kin missing at a local funeral home.
The family was preparing to perform the ceremony on Tuesday, November 10, but could not locate the body of their relative at the renowned funeral home in Nyeri.
After several hours of searching, the mortuary attendants provided them with another body but it turned out it was not that of their loved one.
The daughter of the deceased told Capital FM that the family declined after noticing that the features of the presented body did not match those of her mother.
“My mother was using dentures since all her teeth had gone off and they were left at home when the body was taken to the morgue.
"The body they are giving is of a woman with almost all teeth on. How could we have accepted it?" questioned the daughter Loise Wangari.
The deceased was identified as Monicah Mumbi who died aged 77 years.
After the standoff, the funeral home issued an apology to the family and opened investigations into the incident.
Some attendants suspected that they may have mistakenly presented Mumbi's body to a separate family in Murang'a.
The body they presented to the Othaya family was believed to belong to the family that already picked and buried their kin last week.
Mumbi's relatives reportedly demanded a reimbursement on the money they spent on the burial plans.
The incident comes amid restrictions in the manner in which burials are conducted since the Covid-19 pandemic hit the country in March 2020.
The Ministry of Health had issued measures requiring that the burial ceremonies should only take a maximum of an hour to curb the spread of the virus.
Various other African traditions such as viewing the body and having family and friends gather for final sendoff were scrapped due to social distance requirements and time constraints.
