A postmortem that was to be conducted on the body of Caroline Mwatha was again delayed on Thursday morning following a strike by city Mortuary attendants who had kept off the facility, prompting Chief Government Pathologist Johansen Oduor to move the exercise to Umash Funeral Home.
However,an independent pathologist has revealed Caroline Mwatha died due to excessive bleeding following a botched abortion exercise.
Caroline Mwatha died while aborting. Hessy wa Dandora was right. pic.twitter.com/RerDnz753h
— Brian (@BryBell11) February 14, 2019
Addressing the media at Umash Funeral Home where the autopsy was conducted, Dr. Peter Ndegwa, said Ms Mwatha, a human rights defender, was “about 5 to 6 months pregnant with a male foetus.”
Her uterus was badly ruptured resulting to excessive bleeding, according to Dr. Ndegwa.
“Unfortunately, I think somebody mistreated the foetus; it has no left upper limb, it has no brain because it has been sucked out, and there is a lot of blood in abdominal cavity. The foetus was actually in the abdominal cavity, it had come out of the uterus because the uterus had been perforated at the back and this led to bleeding,” said the doctor.
“We also found some needle puncture marks on the right cubital fossa meaning that there was some medical intervention somewhere; and we have taken some test specimen to see what kind of medicine was injected.”
The pathologist also stated that the deceased had no other physical injuries on the body besides the needle marks — ruling out any signs of struggle in the events leading to her death.
The death of Ms. Mwatha, whose body was found on Tuesday at the City Mortuary a week after she went missing, elicited varied reactions with the family and sections of the public initially rejecting the police version that she died from a botched abortion process.
According to the Director of Criminal Investigations George Kinoti, Ms. Mwatha went for an abortion at a clinic within Dandora Phase 1 in Nairobi on February 6, 2019 — the day she went missing.
In a statement on Tuesday evening, Mr. Kinoti pointed out that police investigations indicate that Ms. Mwatha died in the clinic and the body was transferred to the Nairobi City Mortuary on February 7, 2019 at 4:42a.m.
“On February 6, 2019, Caroline went to a clinic known as New Njiru Community Centre within Dandora Phase 1. It is believed an abortion procedure was procured by the owner of the clinic namely Betty Akinyi Nyanya alias Betty Ramoya and one purported ‘Dr’ Michael Onchiri Dr. Mike,” read the statement in part.