Government to Bury Shakahola Bodies in Mass Grave

By Mwakwaya Raymond

The government has asked relatives of Shakahola massacre to collect their bodies at Malindi mortuary or they will be buried in a mass grave.

Interior cabinet secretary Kipchumba Murkomen said the government could no longer keep the bodies for eternity because those concerned have not claimed the bodies yet.

According to him all activities related to Shakahola incident will come to a close soon and not a single body will be left lying in the morgue.

The CS, speaking in a joint interview in Mombasa, said the government was contemplating retaining a section of the land forest where the bodies would be buried and turn it into a monument for all those who perished there.

“We still have unclaimed bodies in Malindi and for sure we cannot continue holding these bodies hence I urge relatives to cooperate and avail themselves for DNA so as to identify their loved ones.”

Since the identification exercise began only 66 bodies have so far been collected.

The security boss dismissed claims that the exercise stopped due to lack of funds to buy required reagents saying relatives have not been showing up for the DNA testing that halted the exercise.

He explained that plans were underway to build a bigger government chemistry that would assist to reduce workload on forensic evidence.

“Today I visited the government chemistry department at Kongowea and I saw the need to have a bigger facility that will offer better services.”

Several faithful of the Good News Church perished after they allegedly starved themselves to death in line with their pastors’ preaching.

Pastor Paul Mackenzie of the Good News Gospel is in custody facing various charges among them murder case.

Meanwhile, the government has announced the recruitment of 10,000 police officers in a bid to complement those already in service.

The CS said the procurement process for 3,000 police vehicles was underway and would soon be distributed to various police stations across the country.

The government will soon embark on a mission to reward hardworking and deserving chiefs and their assistants so as to motivate them.

He announced that apart from the promotion, the government would also train and enumerate chiefs that would have excellent working records as motivation to do even better.