The Kenya Red Cross has donated a mobile mortuary to ease the pressure off the Malindi Hospital mortuary which has a capacity of 30 bodies. With at least 110 bodies having been exhumed, the sub-county facility was already overstretched.
The mobile preservation facility, in the form of a custom-made 40-foot container with state-of-the-art cooling system can take up to 300 bodies.The donation of a mobile morgue by humanitarian player Society which has a capacity of holding 300 bodies.
Exhumation of more bodies from Shakahola, located in the vast Chakama Ranch, is expected to resume on Monday next week after the exercise was halted following the heavy downpour being experienced at the coastal strip.
On Thursday, chief government pathologist Johanssen Oduor commenced post postmortems on the victims, conducting the exercise on 24 bodies, among them three children and is expecting to continue with the exercise on Friday.
He observed that among several other findings, one of the victims was a woman whose uterus showed signs of having given birth recently. While the majority of the bodies may be in a bad state for identification through public viewing, some eight of them would not require a DNA process.
Other findings on the victims’ bodies include head injuries caused by a blunt object, starvation and strangulation, especially children.
The Red Cross has set up a family tracing desk at the Malindi Hospital, where the humanitarian organization is also offering counseling and psycho-social support to members of the public through volunteers.
Reporting and photos by Victor Ogale
