Were it not for the absence of a public cemetery in Nyamira County, the burial of 14 bodies in a mass grave on the outskirts of Kericho Town might have not have happened.
Early reports that a mass grave was found with bodies badly mutilated stirred unease across the nation last week.
However, it is now emerging that the remains were likely transferred from Nyamira County Referral Hospital Mortuary following legal approval to dispose of them as unclaimed.
DCI Homicide detectives at Makaburini cemetery in Kericho Town on March 22, 2026 where 14 bodies were buried in a mass grave.
Photo credit: Vitalis Kimutai | Nation Media Group
Neither Nyamira nor Kisii counties have a designated public cemetery. The bodies, some of which had lain in the mortuary for as long as two years, had piled up and were taken to Kericho where an existing cemetery could accommodate them.
“The said 13 bodies should be interred at the nearest public cemetery (Kericho),” reads an affidavit from Nyamira County Referral Hospital, submitted through Mr David Araka.
The burial has put both Kisii and Nyamira counties under intense scrutiny, revealing that neither has set aside land for public burials. The densely populated region has long relied on homestead burials with families laying their loved ones to rest on shrinking parcels of ancestral land.
DCI Homicide detectives at Makaburini cemetery in Kericho Town on March 22, 2026 where 14 bodies were buried in a mass grave.
Photo credit: Vitalis Kimutai | Nation
Population pressure has steadily eroded available space, a problem compounded by the alleged grabbing of land once reserved for public use, particularly in Kisii County.
Leaders in both counties have faced mounting criticism for failing to provide the fundamental public service—a dignified resting place for the departed.
For years, Kisii County relied on the Nyambera graveyard near the Kisii Teaching and Referral Hospital Mortuary. But the cemetery reportedly fell prey to powerful interests and graves were desecrated, remains exhumed and private developments erected on the site.
In a deeply conservative community where home burials remain the norm, Nyambera had offered dignity to the unclaimed and solace to families with no land left to give.
Recently, Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen had urged Kisii residents to embrace burial in designated public cemeteries.
“This way, you will ease the pressure on land,” he said.
Yet, his call rings hollow as no such cemeteries exist. Nyamira, in particular, has never had a public cemetery.
Once a division under the defunct Kisii District, Nyamira relied on Nyambera dumpsite for such needs. However, 13 years into devolution, the county has yet to establish its own graveyard.
Kisii County’s efforts to resolve the crisis have been mired in controversy. In 2022, the county was engulfed in scandal over the loss of Sh34 million intended to purchase 20 acres for a cemetery and dumpsite, land that either did not exist or was tied up in protracted ownership disputes.
Attempts to secure 13 acres of the disputed property were met with fierce resistance from local residents.
Conceived during the urgency of the Covid-19 pandemic when fears of rising mortality loomed, the project ultimately failed. Investigations implicated senior county officials and politicians in the questionable transaction.
Kisii Governor Simba Arati has since appealed to the judiciary and the National Lands Commission to help reclaim grabbed public land including the lost cemetery.
“People have grabbed roads, schools, cemeteries and dumping sites. We had land inherited from county councils that has also been encroached upon,” Mr Arati said during celebrations marking a decade of the Lands and Environment Court.
In a stark acknowledgment of the crisis, the governor later urged residents to consider cremation, acknowledging the severe land shortage.
“We may have to resort to cremation. Though it is not our tradition or custom, we do not have space, and people must come to understand that this is the only way to go, because we do not have land,” he said.
