Uniben Teaching Hospital threatens mass burial of 462 unclaimed corpses

The management of University of Benin Teaching Hospital, UBTH, has complained about the large number of unclaimed corpses in the hospital mortuary. 

Speaking in a local broadcast station in Benin City, Professor Adebola Ehizele, Deputy Chairman, Medical Advisory Committee in charge of Research and Ethics, said the bodies, which have been in the hospital’s mortuary from January 2023 up until June 2025, risk being given mass burials by the hospital. 

Ehizele added that the unclaimed corpses are about 462, out of which 350 are children. 

She said the management has given a grace of six weeks for the owner’s of the corpses to claim them and that at the expiration of the deadline the corpses would be disposed off through mass burial. 

A statement issued by the management of the hospital stated that the establishment had concluded plans to dispose of all unclaimed corpses that have been in the hospital mortuary for a long time. 

The statemen reads: “We hereby request that owners of such corpses come forward and claim them as they can no longer be accomodated in the hospital morgue. 

“Consequently, owners of such corpses are hereby given six week’s notice from the date of this publication/announcement to claim their corpse(s).” 

“Any unclaimed corpse(s) at the expiration of the six weeks period shall be disposed off through mass burial or any other manner considered appropriate,” the statement added.