The University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH), Ituku-Ozalla, Enugu State, has given families and relatives three weeks to claim 126 unclaimed corpses in its morgue or risk a mass burial.
The ultimatum was contained in a public notice issued by the hospital’s Department of Morbid Anatomy, Morgue Unit, warning that the bodies would be disposed of through a court-approved mass burial if no one came forward to identify and claim them.
According to the notice, some of the corpses have been in the hospital morgue since 2008.
“The body of the deceased should be claimed from the day of publication of this announcement to three weeks after,” the notice stated.
A catalogue attached to the notice contains 126 entries, with the earliest dating to December 11, 2008. 
The list includes the names of some of the deceased, where available, as well as descriptions of how the bodies were brought to the hospital. Many of the entries are recorded as “Unknown” or “Unknown Corpse.”
Several of the bodies were reportedly brought to the hospital by security agencies following fatal road crashes, while others were unidentified persons found dead in different locations. The list also includes both adults and infants, with the records spanning 2008 to 2023.
The report further stated that about 80 per cent of the bodies, many of them young people, were brought to the hospital between 2020 and 2023, a period marked by heightened pro-Biafra agitations and security operations across parts of the South-East.
Hospital sources reportedly told SaharaReporters that some of the corpses were of persons who allegedly died in security custody and were subsequently labelled as members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
However, the circumstances surrounding the deaths could not be independently verified.
The development highlights the wider challenge faced by public hospitals across Nigeria in managing unclaimed corpses, particularly bodies whose relatives cannot be traced or identified.
Beyond the humanitarian concerns, prolonged preservation of unclaimed bodies also places a financial burden on teaching hospitals, which must continue to provide mortuary services despite limited resources.
The UNTH ultimatum comes shortly after the Annunciation Specialist Hospital, Emene, Enugu, announced plans to seek approval for the mass burial of 58 unclaimed corpses, some of which had reportedly remained in its morgue since 2008.
The hospital had also raised concerns over the millions of naira spent on preserving the bodies over the years.
