A family in Embu County has been thrown into anguish after the body of their one-year-old child went missing at Embu Level Five Hospital Mortuary, only for it to later emerge that the remains had been mistakenly released to another family and buried.
The tense incident unfolded on Monday morning when relatives and friends of Lee Delyn Mukundi arrived at the facility to collect the body ahead of a planned burial at their rural home in Kigumo Village, located in Runyenjes Constituency.
What was expected to be a brief and routine process quickly turned into a distressing ordeal after mortuary attendants failed to trace the body.
According to family members, the child had died about a week earlier and the family had already completed funeral arrangements, including purchasing a coffin and mobilising relatives for the burial.
As minutes turned into hours, tension mounted at the mortuary as mourners demanded an explanation from hospital staff.
Some family members and neighbours threatened to stage demonstrations in Embu Town if the hospital failed to release the body for burial.
“We were told to wait as they searched for the body, but nobody could explain what was really happening,” said one relative who accompanied the family.
The situation soon escalated, forcing hospital administrators to intervene in an attempt to calm the growing crowd.
It later emerged that the body the family had come to collect had, in fact, been mistakenly released to another family and buried at a homestead in Kiamuringa area, in neighbouring Mbeere South.
Speaking to journalists outside the mortuary, the child’s father, Kevin Mukundi, described the moment the family realised something was terribly wrong.
“When we were shown the body, we immediately knew it was not our child,” he said.
“It was the body of a six-year-old boy, yet our son was only one year old. Even the size was completely different. The body could not fit into the small coffin we had prepared for our child,” he added.
According to Mukundi, the family demanded further clarification from the mortuary attendants, who initially appeared confused and could not immediately explain how the mix-up had occurred.
The mourners later made a brief stop at Embu Police Station, hoping authorities would intervene.
However, officers referred them back to the hospital, explaining that the matter was administrative in nature and would have to be handled by the facility’s management.
The decision further heightened emotions among the grieving relatives, who felt the process was being unnecessarily delayed while they waited for clear answers.
Several hours later, Embu County officials arrived at the mortuary to assess the situation.
Embu County Chief Officer for Health Patrick Mukavi confirmed that a serious mix-up had indeed occurred at the facility.
He told the family and members of the press that legal procedures had already been initiated to allow for the exhumation of the body that had been wrongly buried in Kiamuringa.
“The county government acknowledges that a mistake was made. We have started the necessary legal processes to facilitate exhumation so that proper identification can be done and the error corrected,” Mukavi said.
He further assured the family that the Embu County health department would meet the burial expenses, noting that the family had already made all preparations before discovering that the wrong body had been released.
“This family had prepared everything for the burial. As a county, we will take responsibility for the costs arising from this unfortunate incident,” he added.
While apologising to the family, Mukavi said the county would also conduct an internal review to establish how the incident happened and to prevent similar cases in the future.
Health officials did not disclose whether any mortuary staff had been suspended or subjected to disciplinary action, saying investigations were ongoing.
The family later left the facility visibly distraught, saying they were now waiting for the county government to complete the legal and administrative processes required to retrieve the child’s body and allow them to proceed with burial.
“We just want our child back so that we can bury him with dignity,” Mukundi said.
The incident has sparked public concern in Embu, with residents questioning the handling of bodies at public health facilities and calling for stricter systems to prevent identification errors, especially in sensitive cases involving children and grieving families.
As of Monday evening, the family was still awaiting official communication on when the exhumation and identification process would be carried out, bringing closure to an ordeal that has deepened their grief at an already painful time.
