Family buried wrong Garissa student body

Sunday October 11, 2015

Garissa attack victims displayed at Chiromo for Family Members to collect. Photo/File

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DNA analysis has revealed that a family in Itivanzou, Kyuso district, Kitui county, buried the wrong body of a Garissa University College student killed in a terrorist attack on April 2.

Philomena Kasyoka’s father Peter Isombo on Friday said it has been established they were given the wrong body.

“There was a fingerprint mismatch that saw us get the wrong body. We have to accept that horrible fact and prepare to collect and bury the body of our daughter that has all along been in the morgue,” Isombo told the Star on the phone.

He said government officials showed them the DNA results and they are convinced the body in the morgue is that of their daughter.

Isombo said the government has agreed to transport the body for burial and the exhumation of the other body.

Another family in Kitui has been searching for their daughter since the attack in which 147 people were killed.

The family of Isaac Mutisya, a teacher, did not know their daughter Risper Kasyoka was mistakenly buried by the Itivanzou family.

Now they will bury Risper’s body at Maluma village, Nzambani ward, Kitui East subcounty.

Isombo said the exhumation of Risper’s body and burial of Philomena have been tentatively set for either October 16 or 17.

Mid-last month, the Isombo family, relatives and neighbours stopped CID officers from exhuming the body, saying it was taboo in the Kamba culture to leave a grave empty.

It was after that incident that the CID decided to collect samples from Isombo and his wife Beatrice for a DNA analysis to establish any connection with the body that had remained unclaimed in Chiromo Mortuary.

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