This archive report was first published on 21 June 2020.
MP Tim Wanyonyi Recounts Traumatic Experience of Brother's Covid-19 Burial ¶
On May 20, 2020, Westlands MP Tim Wanyonyi received devastating news about the death of his 48-year-old brother, Antony Waswa Wetangula, who was being treated at the Intensive Care Unit in Bungoma County.
According to Wanyonyi, his brother was buried by a team of health workers at Mukhweya village, Bungoma County, with police officers standing guard during the brief ceremony where only 60 people were allowed.
"I would like my brother to be remembered as a person who was loving, a very sociable person and also somebody who you can send and be sure he will deliver," Wanyonyi said in an interview with Citizen TV on June 21, 2020.
Wanyonyi further noted that his brother's burial was 'inhumane' as all his kin had been kept away, including at the hospital during his last three days at the ICU.
"The strangers are the ones who came and buried him... I don't think anybody has come to terms with that kind of burial that we could not view the body... We sent clothes for him to be dressed but they did not, they just threw them in the casket," he added.
Wanyonyi also revealed that he had instructed Bungoma Senator Moses Wetangula, his brother, to pay their father a visit to deliver the news in person.
"We have never been told what caused his death. Immediately after his death, I talked to the doctor and he told me it was heart failure. When we contacted the ministry, they told us they are treating every death as Covid-19-related," he continued.
