Families of a Kenya Defense Forces (KDF) couple have been battling each other out on where the body of a female soldier should be buried. With the biological family or the in-laws?
Ms Esther Muthoni was among 12 people who died when their vehicle crashed at Kikopey, on the Nakuru-Nairobi highway. Her husband is on the other hand a deceased KDF soldier who was killed by Al-Shabaab militants during an operation.
Contrary to Ms Muthoni’s in-laws directives, her family hurriedly picked her body from Umash Funeral Home in Nakuru.
This is as the in-laws intended to bury her body next to her husband’s.
“We arrived at the morgue at around 9am and discovered that her family had taken the body at 5am,” said Mr John Maina, a brother of the late soldier.
The in-laws have therefore demanded that the body be exhumed.
“This was my daughter-in-law, we had even agreed with KDF to have all our son’s benefits transferred to her. We will not allow her body to remain here in the wilderness,” added another relative.
The couple had two sons, aged nine and six.
Area Chief Mark Cherutich said Ms Muthoni’s family had informed him of their intention to bury her body, adding that he did not know about the dispute.