The management of the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital, UCTH, have announced that there are over 50 corpses in their morgues that have been abandoned for over 10 years, more than the statutory three months period.
The UCTH management, which explained that the hospital no longer has space in the morgue to preserve more bodies, disclosed that relatives of the deceased have not come to claim the bodies after several years.
Based on this development, the Chairman of the Special Task Force on the Evacuation of Abandoned and Unclaimed Corpses at UCTH, Dr David Ushie, said a decision has been taken to conduct mass burial of the abandoned corpses on Wednesday, 21 October 2026, after the expiration of a three weeks grace period.
The management, however, again called on families and individuals with unclaimed corpses in the morgue to identify and retrieve them on or before October 21, 2026.
Ushie disclosed that the hospital made efforts to locate relatives of the deceased, all to no avail, warning that all bodies still unclaimed would be given mass burial without further notice.
“The October 21 deadline remains firm. The hospital would not issue another notice before carrying out the mass burial”, he stressed.
Speaking earlier on behalf of the Chief Medical Director of UCTH, Prof. Ikpeme Ikpeme, Deputy Chairman of the Medical Advisory Committee in charge of Clinical Services, Dr Stephen Ogbudu, attributed the growing number of unclaimed bodies to the rising cost of burial ceremonies and cultural practices that place significant financial responsibilities on bereaved families and their in-laws.
Ogbudu, while noting that that the directive covered corpses kept in the mortuary beyond the statutory 90-day period from the date they were deposited, also disclosed that some of the bodies had been in the morgue for more than a decade.
According to him, the prolonged storage of the bodies has made it necessary to undertake the evacuation exercise to ease pressure on the mortuary, improve sanitation and create a better environment for clinical services.
