Families of victims of Salama pilgrims accident gather in Sultan Hamad

There's a sombre mood at the Sultan Hamud sub-county hospital mortuary, a day after a grisly road accident claimed 17 lives; among them, pilgrims who were heading to the Subukia shrine in Nakuru county, for the National Prayer Day. Families camped at the mortuary from early this morning, as a postmortem exercise began. The hospital says the process must be completed before the bodies are released to the families for burial. For many families, the wait is agonizing. Some are still searching through photos, others through clothes and luggage retrieved from the wreckage. The pilgrims, all members of the St Mathias Mulumba Mikindani Parish, in the Catholic Archdiocese of Mombasa, were traveling from Mombasa to join the prayers on Saturday, before their journey of faith ended tragically in the Salama area on the Nairobi-Mombasa highway.