Homicide detectives have reportedly kicked off phase five of exhuming the bodies of victims of the Shakahola mass murder.
Sources familiar with the operation informed the media that the exercise resumed on Monday, June 3.
The operation will involve detectives from the Department of Criminal Investigations (DCI) homicide department working in collaboration with other agencies.
Last week, the state handed over the last of 34 bodies that had been positively identified out of the over 400 bodies that were preserved in refrigerated containers outside the Malindi Sub-county Hospital mortuary.
On Sunday, DCI officers finalized the necessary logistics to resume the exhumation exercise.
“We will target a total of 34 mapped gravesites in the Shakahola forest,” a source intimated to the media.
In this phase, the mass graves will be located using the Global Positioning System (GPS) for easy identification and subsequent exhumation to expedite the process.
The targeted area is within the vicinity where 429 bodies of the deadly religious doctrine were exhumed in the previous four phases.
Phase Five is expected to be the final exhumation exercise before the government determines the fate of unidentified bodies. It is expected that all the unclaimed bodies will be interred in a mass grave within the Shakahola forest.
CS Kindiki has since announced the government’s plan to establish a memorial center at Shakahola.
Approximately 4,000 acres of the 50,000-acre Chakama Ranch will be allocated to honor the deceased Shakahola victims.
“The Government will acquire parts of the Chakama Ranch where the main suspect carried out his atrocious crimes on the people of Kenya and build a memorial to remind us of what happened in perpetuity,” CS Kindiki said in March.
