• Family seeks court order to exhume body of wife of fallen KDF officer.
• Wants proper custody of deceased couple's property on behalf of orphans aged nine and five.
The family of a KDF officer who was killed in Somalia in 2016 is appealing to the government to allow them to exhume his wife’s body.
The family from Maragua, Murang’a county, says following Josphat Mbau’s death, his wife Esther Muthoni received compensation of up Sh10 million from the government which enabled her to continue supporting her two children aged nine and five.
Muthoni, the family said, lived well with her in-laws until her demise in a road accident in Kikopey last month.
The family got reports of her death from Muthoni’s family that lives in Nakuru. Her family took away the children and household items.
Muthoni’s family then refused to engage her husband’s family, inisisting they wanted to bury her remains.
The officer’s family however said she became their daughter after she married their son and wanted to bury her next to her husband’s grave.
Several consultative meetings held at Muthoni’s paternal home ended in disarray after the two families failed to agree.
The KDF officer’s family then decided to go to court to block their in-laws from taking Muthoni’s body from a morgue in Nakuru.
They arrived at the mortuary only to find that her body had been taken at 5 am and buried in a farm she had allegedly recently bought in Kongasis, Gilgil.
In frustration, Mbau’s family decided to follow the body to the grave site and was shocked to find Muthoni was already buried.
“We got there accompanied by local police officers and established that even the grave itself was only about three feet [deep],” Thomas Mungai, Mbau’s uncle, said.
Mungai said the family had proposed that all the property should be put under custody until the two children attain the age of 18 years.
“We had suggested that both families should appoint a guarantor to witness the agreement that would be drawn by lawyers to have the property put under a bank but they refused, telling us that we had already buried our dead and should let them bury theirs,” he said.
He said Mbau had constructed a rental houses in Nakuru and had bought a farm in the same area.
He also had two parcels of land in Thika and Saba Saba, according to his family.
Safeguarding his properties is the only way to guarantee the future of his two sons, they said.
The family has now filed an application in court to get an order that will allow them exhume Muthoni's body and give it a decent send off in her husband’s home.
“We also want Mbau’s property to be released to his children and an account opened to support them,” Mungai said.