Federal Medical Centre, Owerri, To Conduct Mass Burial For Abandoned Bodies

By Adesina Soyooye

In an advertorial placed in a local newspaper in Owerri, Imo State, the Federal Medical Centre, (FMC) Owerri, says it would organise a mass burial for the many unclaimed bodies in its mortuary.

Nobody knows the identities of the bodies, and/or those who deposited them, but FMC has given two weeks notice from the date of the publication, September 28, 2021, for families to come and move such bodies, or they will be buried, just like that.

It also asked those who are looking for their relations, presumed missing, to visit the mortuary to check.

The Public Notice signed by its Public Relations Officer, Achonye Jacinta, PhD, reads:

“This is to inform the general public that the Federal Medical Centre, Owerri, intends to conduct mass burial of abandoned corpses in its mortuary.

“In view of the above, those whose relatives are missing should visit the hospital’s mortuary for possible identification and collection  of such corpse(s) within (2) weeks from this publication.”

Stories of missing persons have been rife in the State. It worsened since the era of unknown gunmen and other criminal activities.

There have been stories of extra judicial killings, just as there have been stories of hardened criminals – kidnappers, murderers, armed robbers – who had been killed by security agents and their bodies taken to the mortuary, but whose families are too ashamed to associate with, or claim.

The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Owerri Ecclesiastical Province, His Grace, Archbishop Anthony Obinna, was quoted as saying that on a visit to the FMC mortuary, he saw scores of bodies of young men littering it.

Apparently, nobody has claimed most of them since them.