East Africa’s largest burial site on its death bed

By Peter Muiruri

On April 5, 1958, a young man of Persian origin by the name Cyrus Samandari died in Nairobi aged only 25.

Ten days later, his remains were interred in a freshly dug grave in a block reserved for the Bahai faith at Nairobi’s Lang’ata Cemetery in a funeral that was officiated by the then chairperson of the Bahai community in Kenya.

His burial in grave Number Two was the first entry in the funeral register at the cemetery.

Mr Samandari opened the way for thousands of other city residents to be buried at Lang’ata, the largest cemetery in East Africa.

But 54 years later, an eerie crisis looms as the burial site which has been offering a final resting place to 350 persons per month is full after admitting more than 200,000.

It is, however, impossible to tell the exact number as  no permanent records are kept for those buried in the temporary section of the cemetery.

Grabbed land

The crisis has been exacerbated by a number of factors, chief among them being the ever diminishing land.

Apparently the cemetery has been full since 1996 and has survived by flattening graves after a short period so as to accommodate new bodies. To help manage the situation, the official lifespan of temporary graves has been fixed at five years.

The County Weekly has established that a sizeable chunk of the 117 acres originally designated as the public cemetery has since been grabbed.

Our Investigations also show that some families have reserved their yards within the cemetery for up to 99 years, meaning that no other person can be buried in their lots.

Cremation option

Recent developments have frustrated any hopes of the city council acquiring land for cemeteries outside Nairobi. Efforts to purchase an alternative land in Mavoko two years ago ended in a scandal.

There are fears that once the devolution model is finally implemented, counties surrounding Nairobi may be unwilling to sell land to the city to bury its dead.

Observers now feel it is time other alternatives such as cremation are adopted to ease the pressure brought about by the demand for burial places in Nairobi.

Prominent personalities such as the late prelate Manasses Kuria and his wife, Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai, Joshua Okuthe and a long serving Government minister, Peter Okondo opted to be cremated, giving this alternative a big boost.

In the early days of the cemetery, majority of those buried there were mainly the moneyed as Africans preferred to inter their dead in their rural areas.

Today, the graveyard accommodates the dead from all faiths and social status.

The County Weekly encountered Nderitu, a City Council of Nairobi employee who has been the cemetery caretaker for the last five years.

During the tour of the burial site, one witnesses the gap between the rich and the poor, even in death.

With Sh40,000, one can have his final resting place reserved in the permanent section. This involves leasing the grave site from the city council for 99 years. There are no reservations for children.

Newly built homes

“There are many families and institutions that reserve a piece of the graveyard for their kin. Some have been known to reserve as many as ten graves. That is the choice they have made and we have to respect their wishes,” says Sammy Jacob, Senior Funeral Superintendent with the City Council of Nairobi.

Jacob says such families visit the graveyard occasionally to do maintenance.

However, those buried in the temporary section of the cemetery have no such luxuries. Inhabitants of this section are a forgotten lot with their graves overgrown with bushes.

Chances are, the grave may have been flattened to give room for more bodies.

“A temporary grave is just that; temporary. It is like someone asking to live in your house on a short term basis. Such a person cannot lay claim to your house once his time is up. That is why we flatten them every five years to accommodate more bodies,” says Jacob.

During our visit, we came across newly built homes a stone throw distance from the last grave.

According to Jacob, efforts to stop such grabbing hit a brick wall when a demonstration that had been planned about four years ago failed to materialise.

“Initially, records at City Hall, Ministry of Lands and Survey of Kenya did not indicate any subdivision of the cemetery land. However, when we arranged a protest march, letters of allotment showed up in all the three places. There was no further recourse but to lick our wounds,” Jacob says.

KWS indifference

Jacob says the cemetery got full in 1996 and the council hit the recycling mode button. A section of the temporary graveyard has been opened up to serve a permanent burial site. He adds that it is imperative that the city procures an alternative site within its boundaries.

The minister responsible for public health is supposed to close a cemetery once it has been certified to be full. This has not happened for Lang’ata because there is no alternative large scale burial site in the city.

Two years ago, the Ministry of Local Government sparked off a major controversy when it purchased a rocky piece of land in Athi River as an alternative burial site.

 The 120 acre piece of land was valued at Sh24 million but the Government went ahead to pay an extra 259 million. Several Government officials were interdicted and charges preferred against them.

“The move to the county governments next year will present a serious challenge since neighbouring counties may be unwilling to host our dead. They too will need to locate proper burial places for their own,” says Jacob.

Additionally, it is not possible for private land owners to lease out land for burial unless they fully transfer such pieces to local authorities,” says Jacob.

According to the Public Health and Local Authority Acts, only the local municipal governments have the mandate to procure burial sites in their localities.

The alternatives are limited. He cites a request by the city authorities to acquire a piece of land from Kenya Wildlife Service that was met with indifference. KWS said it saw no economic sense relocating wildlife that brings much needed foreign exchange in favour of burying the dead.

Digging deeper

“Population is rapidly increasing with little space for the living, let alone the dead. People must adopt other methods of disposing their dead. We want Kenyans to embrace cremation which has been proved to be more hygienic, cost effective and creates fewer disputes. We must change our social and cultural behaviours, or such fears like being bewitched or cursed,” says Jacob.

It costs 17,000 shillings to cremate a body. Jacob is encouraged by the increasing number of people choosing cremation as their last rite. Before 2009, an average of 20 bodies were being cremated annually and by 2010, the figure had risen to 67 while this year, it is expected to hit 80.

According to Jacob, another option would be to do away with the permanent graves and dig deeper to bury more bodies.

He says it is possible to bury ten corpses in a 20-foot deep grave separating them with concrete slabs.

With this state, urgent measures need to be put in place if only for the city’s dead to rest in peace.