The management of the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH) has expressed concern over the growing number of unclaimed bodies in its mortuary.
Professor Adebola Ehizele, Deputy Chairman of the Medical Advisory Committee in charge of Research and Ethics, disclosed this during a programme on a local broadcast station in Benin City.
Ehizele revealed that the bodies have remained in the hospital’s mortuary between January 2023 and June 2025, adding that about 462 corpses remain unclaimed, with 350 of them being 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 in February, state the establishment had concluded plans to dispose off all unclaimed corpses in the hospital mortuary for a long time.
According to the statement, such corpses include those of adults, children and infants that have been in the morgue since January 2023 up till June 2025.
“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.