Pathologist collects DNA samples from bodies dumped in Tana River

A government pathologist has began collecting samples from the 11 bodies retrieved from the Tana River in Garissa County to assist with their identification. 

More family members of missing Kenyans from different parts of the country continued to visit the Garissa morgue to identify the bodies but none has been identified so far. 

DNA samples will be collected from the people who claim their relatives went missing for tests to find out whether they match samples from bodies of the victims.

For the second day relatives whose loved ones have been missing for months and years thronged the Garissa Referral Hospital Mortuary in search of their kin. 

By Tuesday, at least 11 families were in Garissa to identify recovered bodies that have been preserved at the morgue after retrieval from the Tana River.

Some of the families travelled all the way from Kajiado, Thika and Kiambu town

For some, their kin have been missing for over a year. 

They were making the trip  with the hope of at least finding the remains of their kin and at last get closure after  months and years of suffering. 

As was the case with the group that visited the mortuary on Monday, none of these family members could identify the bodies.

A government pathologist has since started performing autopsies on the bodies. Samples from three bodies have since been collected and will be preserved  testing against DNA samples from people who are visiting the morgue in search of their loved ones. 

This will only be done once samples from all the 11 bodies at the morgue have been collected.

Bodies that are in a poor state because of decomposing will likely still be preserved at the Garissa Mortuary until the identification exercise is complete.

The bodies were collected from Tana River and there’s every indication the victims were tortured and their bodies tied to heavy objects such as rocks and stones and thrown in the river.