Why More Kenyans Abroad Are Choosing to Be Buried Where They Lived
professionals, including nurses and other healthcare workers, have built careers in the United States and other Western countries.
Many have spent most of their adult lives abroad and established families and communities there. When they die, their immediate families, friends and professional networks may be based thousands of kilometres from Kenya.
As migration becomes more permanent, attitudes towards burial are changing with it. Burial abroad is increasingly viewed by some families not as a rejection of Kenyan heritage, but as an acknowledgement of the life the deceased built in another country.
For some diaspora families, a person’s identity can be connected to more than one country. Kenya may remain the country of birth and ancestry, while another country may be where the person spent most of their working life, raised their children and formed their closest relationships.
There are historical examples of people who settled in Kenya and remained buried there after their deaths. The graves of many Europeans who lived in colonial and post-colonial Kenya remain part of the country’s historical landscape.
That history has prompted some members of the diaspora to question whether families should incur substantial costs to transport bodies across continents when a suitable burial place already exists in the community where the deceased lived.
