Ondo Govt Conducts Mass Burial Of 496 Unclaimed Corpses

The Ondo State Government on Tuesday said it had disposed of some unclaimed corpses at the mortuaries of the University of Medical Science Teaching Hospital in Ondo and Akure.

The government said about 496 corpses at the mortuaries were affected, noting that they had been given a mass burial.

The Special Adviser to Governor Rotimi Akeredolu on Health, Dr Francis Faduyile, disclosed the development in a statement issued by the Press Officer of the state Ministry of Health, Bisi Lawani.

Faduyile explained that the government took the action after he and some other government officials recently embarked on an assessment tour of the morgues in the two health facilities and observed with dismay their gory state, saying the facilities were filled with unclaimed bodies for over a year.

The special adviser further stated that after the tour, he informed the governor, through a memo, of the need to decongest and rehabilitate the morgues, which he said had turned into an eyesore. He noted that the board approved the memo and that due process was followed in carrying out the exercise.

Faduyile said, “Mr Governor did not hesitate to approve the memo to carry out the proposed mass burial activities, to avoid an imminent outbreak of epidemic diseases in the state.”

“In all (the morgues), 87 bodies were identified or known by their name tags, while 409 were unknown, and a total of 496 bodies underwent mass burial.”