The Nairobi County government has issued a 7-day notice to the public on its intention to dispose unclaimed bodies that have overstayed in various moirgue facilities in the city.
The notice urged the public to visit the facilities to identify and collect the bodies of their loved ones failure to which they will be disposed of.
A seven-day notice, issued by Nairobi county secretary Godfrey Akumali, stated that unclaimed bodies which fail to be identified and collected would be disposed of upon authorisation after the lapse of the timeframe.
The county secretary revealed there are 238 unclaimed bodies at the Nairobi city funeral home (city mortuary), 62 located at Mama Lucy Kibaki funeral home and 55 at the Mbagathi Funeral home.
''Pursuant to Public Health Act Cap 242, interested members are asked to identify and collect the bodies within 7 days, failure to which the Nairobi city county will seek authority for disposal,'' the notice read.
Among the notable causes of death linked to unclaimed bodies include accidents, suicide, mob justice incidents, drowning, shooting incidents, homicide and natural death.
Public health officials have expressed concern about the increasing number of unclaimed bodies.
Between 2003 and 2006, the City Mortuary disposed of 2,500 unclaimed bodies. The number for KNH was 3,000.
In 2006 Kenya's two main public mortuaries (City Mortuary and Kenyatta National Hospital Mortuary) lost millions in uncollected revenue from unclaimed bodies.
