Kilifi Governor Mung’aro threatens to dump Shakahola bodies at KNH

Speaking on Friday in Dagamra, Magarini sub-county, Mung’aro said the Malindi Sub-County Hospital morgue holding over 400 bodies was strained to capacity and could no longer sustain preservation costs.

He gave Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki up to Monday next week to oversee the removal of the bodies failure to which he would authorize them to be disposed of at KNH.

“I have a message to the government, especially Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki. At the Malindi Hospital, I have two containers holding 429 Shakahola bodies but they just took away a few bodies only,” Manga’ro said as quoted by Capital News.

“Monday if the government will not have removed the bodies, doctors in the hospital should tow the containers and dump them in Kenyatta National Hospital.” 

The county boss further argued that a foul smell emanating from the corpses was affecting the day-to-day operations at the hospital and also delaying the implementation of his administration’s programs at the facility.

“Those who have been visiting Malindi Sub-County Hospital must have realized there is a foul smell coming from the mobile mortuary. I have constructed nice wards in the hospital, but the foul smell comes from the containers preserving the Shakahola bodies,” he said. 

“We want to construct an emergency and outpatient wing where the containers are. We have already floated the tender worth Ksh.150 million but we cannot go ahead with the construction because of the containers.”

Out of the 429 bodies retrieved in the starvation cult led by televangelist Paul Mackenzie of the Good News International Church, only 35 bodies have so far been conclusively identified.

Hundreds of families still wait to lay their loved ones to rest.

Government officials have said the process of handing over the bodies was taking a long time because of exhumation, post-mortem and identification procedures. 

Mackenzie and his co-accused persons are facing several charges in Mombasa and Malindi courts for the deaths of the 429 members.