UBTH Gives Six-Week Notice Over 462 Unclaimed Bodies in Benin Mortuary

The University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH) in Edo State has warned that it may carry out a mass burial of hundreds of bodies that have stayed unclaimed in its mortuary for more than two years.

The hospital said 462 bodies are currently unclaimed, including 350 children, and that many of them have remained in storage from January 2023 to June 2025. UBTH management said it can no longer keep the bodies in the morgue because of space and operational pressure.

Professor Adebola Ehizele, Deputy Chairman of the Medical Advisory Committee in charge of Research and Ethics, said the hospital has already issued a six-week notice for relatives and other authorised persons to come forward for identification and collection.

Ehizele spoke on a local broadcast station in Benin City, where she said the volume of unclaimed corpses had become a major concern for the institution. She said the six-week window is intended to give families enough time to respond before the hospital proceeds with disposal.

In an earlier statement issued in February, UBTH management said the planned disposal affects unclaimed bodies of adults, children and infants that have remained in the mortuary during the stated period.

The hospital said: “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 development has drawn public attention because of the unusually high figure of child bodies listed by the hospital and the implications for families that may not yet have completed burial arrangements.

UBTH has not announced a specific burial date, but management said action will follow once the notice period expires. The hospital urged families with missing relatives, as well as community leaders and relevant authorities, to make urgent inquiries to avoid permanent loss of identification opportunities.