Facebook helps family find daughter’s body

Ms Mauryn Atelah who was brutally attacked and killed last month. Photo/COURTESY

On the morning of September 19, 2010, residents of Umoja estate found a young woman lying naked and unconscious by the roadside near the chief’s camp.

She had been hit on the head and sexually assaulted by her attackers. But rather than stand over the bleeding woman’s body, lamenting the state of insecurity as they waited for the police, two estate residents set aside their day’s plans to get help.

Maureen Murenga and Margaret Odira hired a taxi and took the injured woman to Nairobi Women’s Hospital. She was registered at 8 a.m. only as Patient No. 0110647.

The two good Samaritans were later joined by a volunteer from Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) who got them an ambulance to transfer the victim to Kenyatta National Hospital after staff at the Nairobi Women’s Hospital declined to treat her until a CAT scan had been performed on her head.

“She was bleeding on her head while some bloody foam was oozing from her mouth … the ambulance took us to Kenyatta National Hospital where she was taken to the emergency room,” Ms Murenga said.

At noon, a gynaecologist examined the victim, a CAT scan was done at 3 p.m., an X-ray was taken after she developed difficulty breathing, and then she was prepared for an 8-hour operation.

A letter

The following morning, Ms Murenga went to visit the patient but was asked to return at 1 p.m. and contact the Patient Support Centre; she was later informed the patient had died.

Anxious to let the victim’s family know what had happened, Ms Murenga wrote a letter requesting the Kenyatta National Hospital morgue to lift fingerprints from the deceased.

Ms Murenga took the letter Ref.NO.KNH/MAUS/1/3 dated September 22, 2010 and Form P20 to the National Registration Bureau in an attempt to establish the identity of the victim.

Three weeks later, the National Registration Bureau informed her that the victim had been identified as 26-year-old hairdresser Mauryne Aluoch Atelah, daughter of Moses Atelah and Susan Atelah of Kowuor sub-location, Kanyalou location, Rachuonyo East division, Rachuonyo district.

Deceased’s relatives

Not knowing how to start tracing the relatives of the deceased, Ms Murenga posted the information on her Facebook site in the hope that someone would give her direction.

The response was better than she had expected. A friend in Kisumu wrote to her saying he knew the deceased’s family. The friend then contacted the family and gave them Ms Murenga’s telephone number.

The deceased’s brother Davji Atelah, who had been looking for his missing sister in Nairobi, received a call from his father in Kendu Bay on October 7, informing him that the body had been located at the KNH mortuary, booked as No. 27571 – Unknown African female adult.

By this time, Mr Atelah had lodged missing person’s reports at Kilimani and Central police stations, retraced his sister’s steps, checked KNH wards for her and viewed bodies at KNH and City mortuaries without success.

“My whole family is grateful. She took her time to pick our sister from where she had been left for dead. And even after she was pronounced dead, she took it upon herself to get fingerprints and send them to the National Registration Bureau.

“That is how we finally found out that our sister had been brutally attacked and killed. Not many people would do what Ms Murenga did. My father has personally met and thanked her,” Mr Atelah said.

The police found documents at the scene that did not belong to the deceased and are still investigating the incident. The victim is to be buried on October 24 at her father’s farm in Rachuonyo.

Source: Daily Nation