The Ondo State Government has announced plans to conduct a mass burial for over 400 abandoned corpses currently overcrowding morgues in the University of Medical Sciences Teaching Hospital (UNIMEDTH) complexes in Akure and Ondo.
Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa, in a directive conveyed through his Special Adviser on Health, Simidele Odimayo, however, ordered the immediate burial of the corpses to prevent potential hazards to the people of the state.
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According to him, no fewer than 402 bodies have been left unclaimed in the facilities over the last four to five years, raising public health concerns.
The statement subtitled; “List of unknown and abandoned bodies in UNIMEDTH Ondo and Akure complexes”, said the governor “has approved the mass burial of prolonged abandoned corpses” in the two hospitals.
Due to the concluded plan on the mass burial, the government has called on members of the public to claim the corpses of their loved ones before the expiration of the 21-day ultimatum given for the purpose.
It reads; “the office of the Special Adviser to the Governor on Health has completed arrangement to effect the mass burial. The general public is therefore given up to 21 days from the day of this notice to go with evidence and claim the corpses of their relatives/ loved ones before the proposed mass burial.
According to the statement, there are a total of 146 abandoned female corpses while that of male were 256.
Out of the 145 female corpses, there are 117 unknown corpses while only 29 corpses of the total figure could be identified.
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For the male, out of the 256 corpses, 205 are unknown while 51 could be identified.
The number of unknown corpses both for male and female stands at 322 while the total for known corpses stands at 80.
From the above analyses, the total abandoned and unknown corpses expected to be given mass burial by the Ondo State government remains 402.
