The Nairobi City County has issued a week’s notice to the public to collect 164 unclaimed bodies lying at the Nairobi City Mortuary.

“Pursuant to Public Health Act Cap 242 (Subsidiary Legislation Public Health Mortuaries Rules, 1991), interested members of the public are asked to identify and collect the bodies within 7 days, failure to which they will be interred by the Nairobi Metropolitan Service,” read in part the notice.

Deputy Director-General Fredrick Oluga issued the notice on Tuesday.

He said Kenyans should go to the mortuary to identify and collect the bodies of their kin.

Should the time lapse before the bodies are collected, the bodies will be disposed of by the Nairobi Metropolitan Services.

Cap 242 of the Public Health Act says an unclaimed body should be removed from a mortuary within two weeks or else it is disposed of in a mass grave after public officers obtain a court’s permission.

According to the NCC notice, 155 of the bodies have arrived at the facility between the months of March and May while the other 49 are from last year November and December.

City Mortuary only has a capacity to hold 176 bodies at a time, yet the number of unclaimed bodies alone is almost the number of the facility’s full capacity.