Ondo Conducts Mass Burial for 496 Unclaimed Corpses

Fidelis David in Akure

Ondo State Government has carried out a mass burial for 496 unclaimed corpses in the state.

The Special Adviser to the state Governor on Health, Prof. Dayo Faduyile, who made the disclosure while briefing journalists in Akure yesterday, said the move was part of efforts geared towards decongesting the morgues in the Akure and Ondo complexes of the state University of Medical Science Teaching Hospital (UNIMEDTH).

Faduyile noted that he and some other government officials had recently embarked on an assessment tour of the morgues in the two health facilities and observed with dismay their gory state, having been jam-packed with unclaimed bodies spanning a year and above.

The Special Adviser said the development prompted him to put up a strong memo to the state Governor, Mr. Oluwarotimi Akeredolu (SAN), on the urgent need to decongest and rehabilitate the morgues, which had literally turned an eye-sore.

He said: “The governor did not hesitate to approve the memo to carry out the proposed mass burial, so as to avoid an imminent outbreak of epidemic in the state.”

The pathologist averred that his office followed all due process by putting all necessary machineries in place for a quality and hitch-free mass burial.

Others, according to Faduyile, are the auditing of the unclaimed bodies in the morgues of Akure and Ondo UNIMEDTH complexes for record purposes and the certification of the unclaimed bodies to ascertain their individual causes of death.

“In all, 87 bodies were identified/known with their name tags while 409 were unknown, and a total of 496 bodies underwent mass burial.”

He said the state also obtained mass burial permit from the Chief Magistrate of the Magistrate Court of Justice, Oke-Eda, Akure, securing a parcel of land at Odigbo Local Government Area from the state Ministry of Lands and Housing for the mass burial, advertising the mass burial on the print and electronic media, and giving a 21-day period to reclaim the unclaimed bodies in compliance with the extent laws of the land.

The governor’s aide said: “The 21-day ultimatum as publicised in print and electronic media commenced on August 1 and lapsed on 21, 2022. Thereafter, preparations for the mass burial commenced. On September 2, 2022, the mass burial was carried out, with the protection of security operatives and a handful of journalists. The bodies were buried in a deep grave of 10 by 10 feet wide, and 18 feet deep at the allocated land by the state government.”