The government has announced that the DNA results for the 429 exhumed bodies in the Shakahola massacre will be released next week.
Speaking on Thursday's sidelines of this year’s KEMRI Scientific and Health Conference, Chief government pathologist Dr. Johansen Oduor said the families whose DNA results will be out will be allowed to proceed with the proper burial of their kin.
This is even as the next phase of exhumation of bodies in the vast Shakahola forest resumes in March.
Oduor said the multi-sectoral team involved in the Shakahola exercise will be meeting in the coming week ahead of the next phase of exhumations.
“I don’t know the number but I think in a week’s time we’re going to sit down and look at them then proceed to Malindi so that we can try release a number of bodies which have been identified,” he said.
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The pathologist said one of the biggest challenges in the identification process is the lack of cooperation from family members due to stigma around the cause of death, which was linked to cultism, adding that it slowed down the identification process.
“There were people who we could see just from looking that this person was starved to death based on how thin they were...upon autopsy body fats were diminished completely, there are organs which we usually look at and you can tell that this person was starving and we’re just noting them and documenting them for the purpose of helping the court in prosecution,” he said.
Forensic experts warned those who kill and bury bodies to conceal evidence that science will soon catch up with them, even if it takes years.
“Issues of crime investigations is not a laboratory solution, it starts from the crime scene itself and this personnel at the crime scene should be able to identify the evidential material...they should know how to package the evidential material and the issues of storage,” Government Chemist Dr. John Mungai noted.
