The University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH) has announced plans to conduct a mass burial of more than 50 unclaimed corpses, some of which have remained in its morgue for over a decade.
The hospital said the prolonged abandonment of the bodies had exhausted its mortuary capacity, leaving little or no space to accommodate additional corpses.
Chairman of the Special Task Force on the Evacuation of Abandoned and Unclaimed Corpses at UCTH, Dr David Ushie, said the mass burial would take place on Wednesday, October 21, 2026, following the expiration of a three-week grace period for relatives to claim the bodies.
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He urged families and individuals with deceased relatives in the hospital’s morgue to identify and retrieve the remains on or before the deadline, warning that the hospital would proceed with the exercise without further notice.
Ushie said efforts to trace the relatives of the deceased had yielded no results, despite repeated attempts by the hospital.
“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, Prof. Ikpeme Ikpeme, the Deputy Chairman of the Medical Advisory Committee in charge of Clinical Services, Dr Stephen Ogbudu, attributed the growing number of unclaimed corpses to the rising cost of burial ceremonies and cultural practices that impose significant financial obligations on bereaved families and their in-laws.
Ogbudu explained that the directive applied to corpses kept in the mortuary beyond the statutory 90-day period from the date they were deposited.
He disclosed that some of the bodies had remained unclaimed for more than 10 years, making their continued storage a growing challenge for the hospital.
According to him, the evacuation exercise has become necessary to ease pressure on the mortuary, improve sanitation and provide a better environment for clinical services.
