The family of 17-year-old Zuhura Rama was the only one permitted to take their daughter's remains home on the day, with the young girl set to be buried in Kwale.
The exception was made in recognition of the Islamic faith, which has a strict and non-negotiable religious requirement that the deceased must be buried as quickly as possible after death.
Delaying the burial of a Muslim beyond what is religiously permissible is considered deeply disrespectful to the faith and to the dignity of the deceased.
Sheikh Adam Ali, speaking on behalf of Zuhura's family, had raised the matter directly with authorities, pointing out that the government's blanket policy of holding all bodies until a national requiem service on June 17 was in direct conflict with Islamic burial traditions.
The government relented in this specific case, acknowledging that forcing a Muslim family to wait for a state organised Christian-style memorial service before burying their daughter would have been both religiously insensitive and legally difficult to justify.
For the fifteen other families who left without their children's remains, the exception granted to Zuhura's family only sharpened their frustration.
DNA tests conducted by government pathologist Titus Ngulungu had already confirmed the identities of all 16 victims, meaning there was no scientific or investigative reason to continue holding the bodies.
The sole justification remaining was the government's insistence on staging the June 17 national requiem service first, a decision that parent Dan Parisoi described as traumatising, expensive and deeply unfair to families already broken by grief.
The contrast between one family leaving with their daughter and fifteen others driving home without theirs captured the painful and deeply human cost of a government policy that prioritised a state ceremony over the immediate needs of bereaved parents who had already waited ten agonising days just to see their children's faces one last time.
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