Postmortem examinations on the bodies of 17 Catholic pilgrims killed in a road accident at Mlima Kiu along the Nairobi-Mombasa Highway are expected to be conducted today at Sultan Hamud Hospital in Makueni County.
The victims’ families have already arrived at the Makueni County facility ahead of the exercise, hospital administrator Dr Stephen Mwangangi said.
According to Dr Mwangangi, the bodies will be transported to Mombasa County once the postmortem examinations are completed.
One person who sustained serious head injuries in the crash remains admitted at the Makueni County Referral Hospital, where they are receiving treatment.
The 17 victims were Catholic pilgrims travelling to the National Shrine in Subukia for National Prayer Day when the accident occurred in the Salama area in the early hours of Saturday.
The National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) said several other people were injured in the crash, which involved several vehicles along the busy highway.
The authority had dispatched a team to the scene to investigate the circumstances surrounding the accident and assess the condition of the vehicles involved.
The Catholic Archdiocese of Mombasa confirmed that those killed were pilgrims travelling to Subukia.
The crash occurred along a section of the Nairobi-Mombasa Highway that NTSA has identified as a black spot. The authority said it had previously made road safety recommendations concerning the area.
The circumstances surrounding the collision remain under investigation, with the NTSA team expected to establish what led to the crash and assess the vehicles involved.
The deaths add to Kenya’s longstanding road safety concerns. The country officially records about 4,000 road deaths annually, although the government’s road safety action plan estimates that the actual toll could be significantly higher because of underreporting.
The victims were among Catholic faithful travelling to the National Shrine in Subukia for National Prayer Day, turning what was expected to be a religious journey into a tragedy for families and the wider Catholic community.
The postmortem examinations at Sultan Hamud Hospital are expected to help facilitate the release and transportation of the bodies to Mombasa, where families will make arrangements for burial.