UBTH threatens mass burial of 462 unclaimed corpses

By Jethro Ibileke

The management of University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH) has given till six weeks notice to owners of unclaimed corpses in the hospital mortuary to come pick them or they will be given mass burial.

The Deputy Chairman, Medical Advisory Committee (Research and Ethics) of the Hospital, Professor Adebola Ehizele, disclosed in a programme on a local broadcast station monitored in Benin City.

She said that at the expiration of the deadline, the corpses would be disposed of through mass burial.

It would be recalled that the Hospital had in a statement issued on February 20, 2026, said it has concluded plans to dispose of all unclaimed corpses that have been in the Hospital mortuary for a long time.

The statement disclosed that the 462 corpses including 350 children have been in the morgue between January 2023 up June 2025.

“We hereby request that owners of such corpses should 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 Qany other manner considered appropriate,” the statement had added.