Tears as families identify Mandera bus attack victims

Emotions ran high at the Chiromo mortuary in Nairobi yesterday as relatives of the 28 victims of Saturday's attack in Mandera identified their bodies.

Some of the families of the deceased had to be counselled by Kenya Red Cross personnel before they were allowed to view the bodies of their relatives, while others broke down as they walked out of the viewing room.

According to police and medical officials at the mortuary, among the dead passengers in the Mandera bus attack were 22 teachers, one clinical officer, two police officers, one carpenter and one pharmacist. Almost all the victims were aged between 23 and 30.

Most of the victims were teachers making their way to Nairobi when the dawn attack occurred.

The bodies were flown to Nairobi from Mandera aboard a military plane, hours after the incident.

Postmortems will be done today before the families are allowed to collect the bodies for burial.

At the mortuary, officials from National Disaster Operations Unit, police and Kenya Red Cross were counselling relatives and friends of the massacre victims.

The officials put up two tents outside the mortuary to help the victims in terms of psychological counselling and resting before and after the viewing.

Some relatives complained there were no Government officials to tell them the way forward after the deaths of their loved ones.

"There are no Government officials even from Mandera, where our people worked to uplift the standards of the locals. It is unfortunate," said one of the relatives.

Kakamega Senator Boni Khalwale blamed the Government for the deaths.

Dr Khalwale, a clinical officer by profession, was at the forefront of guiding the mourners into the mortuary.

"We demand that the Government takes over the burial expenses of these victims because it is their failure that has led to the tragedy," he said.

PENDING ATTACKS

He argued that security agencies in Mandera were aware of the pending attacks but failed to act to stop them and wondered how many more would have to die before the menace was stopped.

"I urge those who care to stand up and fight or else we are going to lose more lives. We must hold these people to account," he said.

Officials had a difficult time controlling crowds that wanted to view and identify the bodies.

Some of those who walked into the mortuary had to be helped by emergency service providers when they walked out and broke down.

"The manner in which they were killed is shocking. They were all shot in the head and I wonder what they did to deserve this," said Emanuel Mukobi, who fought back tears after viewing his brother's body.

He said his brother had been shot in the head from behind.

Survivors of the attack said the gunmen separated the passengers based on their religion before they killed non-Muslims at close range.