• Residents say state should have compensated them for their private land as well as disturbance of the dead.
• They say government did not explain the need to relocate graves.
An earthmover with a huge shovel just scooped up six bodies in body bags, four from one family, and deposited them in a common grave.
The plans and the exhumation itself created a furore and great distress. Families said the process had not been explained — the graves had to make way for a tarmacked road.
County and state officials have been condemned for 'bungling' what could have been a smooth process to exhume bodies buried on road reserve in Chuluni, Kitui county.
The contractor also took chunks of private land, residents said.
A member of the family of the late David Muutu blamed state officers for confusion, sorrow and anger that greeted the news that six bodies would have to be exhumed and reburied.
The exhumation was necessary to make way for the 172km Kibwezi-Kitui-Migwani Road being tarmacked by a Chinese firm.
Daniel Mumo spoke to journalists on Thursday after the contractor, Sinohydro Corporation, helped his family exhume and relocate the remains of four family members including his father, Muutu. Bodies of two others were also moved.
An earthmover had dug a huge grave for the re-burial of Mumo’s four relatives. The family had divided it ensure each of the four bodies was in its individual resting place. Body bags were used to move the remains.
“Had there not been a disconnect between county officers and their national counterparts, the exhumation and reburial would have gone been without a hitch,” Mumo said.
The retired government mechanical engineer said the problem was the failure by officials from both sides of the government to explain to the families about the need to relocate the graves. Mumo heads the Global Christian Church in Kitengela in Kajiado county.
He also said the government should have valued all the private land that was to be acquired for the road and affected persons told how much they would receive as compensation.
That would have assured residents that there was no ill motive to disenfranchise them, he said.
“Lack of proper education for the families whose dead relatives were to be exhumed to pave way for the highway left them ignorant. That is the reason the exhumation faced spirited opposition from some of the families,” Mumo said.
On Wednesday, the family of Mausu Ngulu had protested the plan to scoop the remains of their loved ones with an earthmover and bury them in a mass grave.
Ngulu’s 89-year-old widow, Nduku Mausu, also demanded compensation not only for the disturbance of the dead but for the relocation of the graves.
She said she should also be compensated for the huge chunk of the family land taken up for the road.