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At least 33 bodies — including children and dismembered remains stuffed in sacks — were unearthed from a mass grave in western Kenya on Thursday, raising questions about whether the corpses were secretly moved from a hospital morgue.
Detectives exhumed the remains of 25 children and eight adults, as well as dismembered body parts packed in gunny sacks, from a mass grave at a church-owned cemetery in Kericho, authorities said.
“We were able to establish that these were bodies transferred from Nyamira District Hospital to a private cemetery in Kericho,” Mohamed Amin, who leads the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, told reporters.
He said detectives are seeking to determine whether the bodies were legally disposed of after being removed from a morgue.
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The Associated Press reported that Kenyan law allows hospitals and morgues to dispose of unclaimed bodies after 14 days with court authorization.
Government pathologists conducted autopsies Thursday to determine the cause of death, though the identities of the victims have not been released.
Authorities have arrested two people in connection with the case.
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Local media reported the bodies were transported in a government vehicle by unidentified individuals and buried hastily, with some gravediggers later alerting police.
“We need authorities to conduct a thorough investigation,” resident Brian Kibunja said.
Another resident, Samuel Moso, said authorities should “reveal if the government was involved or if a different group of people was behind the mass burial.”
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There have been three major mass-grave incidents in Kenya over the past three years.
Police in 2023 uncovered hundreds of bodies buried in a forest in Kenya’s coastal Kilifi region, exhuming mass graves tied to a religious leader accused of starving his followers to death.
In 2024, authorities recovered nine bodies from a dumpsite in Nairobi, the Eastern African nation’s capital.
The latest discovery comes as concerns grow among some Kenyans over alleged abuses by police.
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Missing Voices, a human rights group, said it documented 125 extrajudicial killings and six enforced disappearances in Kenya over the past year, compared to 104 reported killings the year before.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.