Families of Shakahola victims left in limbo as DNA testing faces funding shortfall

The painful wait for families affected by the Shakahola massacre drags on as the government struggles to complete the DNA identification process for victims.

Many relatives, desperate for closure, are left in limbo as the Government Chemist faces financial and logistical challenges in processing the remains.

Dr Joseph Kimani, the head of the Forensics Directorate, explained that DNA extraction from the exhumed bodies is a complex and costly task.

“It is a very expensive undertaking especially when you’re dealing with exhumed remains, because you are not using your ordinary extraction, you are using highly stringent chemical regimes,” he said.

The state of the remains has only made the process more difficult. The bodies retrieved from Shakahola were in varying stages of decomposition, making it harder to obtain viable DNA profiles.

According to William Munyoki from the Office of the Government Chemist, most samples were in bad shape and it was difficult to get a good profile from them for DNA.

“The bodies were buried in soil, there is an abundance of humic acid, and again, because of decomposition processes, the DNA is highly degraded,” he said.

Submitted samples not enough

While relatives have been urged to provide samples for comparison, officials say the number of samples submitted so far is not enough.

“If you have a certain number of bodies from a scene of a disaster, you require about three times the number of the bodies you have to compare with... you need a broader sample from relatives. If you see a delay, it is about how fast and quickly you get to have relatives come out for cross-matching,” Kimani explained.

Beyond sample collection, securing funding for the tests remains a major hurdle.

The government has admitted that a key test, the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), is essential for identifying the remains, but it is not available in the country. Importing the necessary testing kits is not only expensive but also slow due to lengthy procurement procedures.

“There is no local manufacturer who does these kits. We have to procure them from abroad, and the procurement processes are lengthy, and the kits are damn expensive. One kit to carry out just 200 runs is almost 1 million, so the expense for instance for Shakahola is in monumental amounts,” Kimani said.

So far, 333 DNA samples have been tested out of the 453 bodies recovered, yet only a fraction have been matched to their relatives.

“We have some profiles that have not been matched with any relatives, so they need to come for samples,” Munyoki said.

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For the families of the victims, the wait for answers remains agonising.

As the process drags on due to financial and bureaucratic setbacks, their hope for closure and dignified burials remains just out of reach.