The Annunciation Specialist Hospital, Emene, in Enugu State, has appealed to the Enugu East Local Government Area to provide land for the mass burial of 58 unclaimed corpses in its mortuary.
The hospital said nearly three months after it issued a public notice, no family has come forward to identify any of the bodies.
The Chief Executive Officer of the hospital, Rev. Sister Josepher Ojiaku, disclosed this while speaking with SaharaReporters on Friday.
She said the corpses were mainly victims of fatal road accidents brought to the facility by security agencies, especially the Nigeria Police Force and the Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC.
Ojiaku said most of the bodies have been in the hospital’s mortuary since 2008.
She said the hospital had on August 21, 2026, issued a 21-day ultimatum asking members of the public to come forward to identify and claim the bodies.
The notice, according to her, was announced on several radio stations across the South East from August, but no relative has shown up.
She lamented that the continued preservation of the bodies is costing the private hospital millions of naira.
"Our hospital is spending so much money in maintaining and keeping those corpses in our facility," she said.
"The state government is not interested or helping. Some of them were treated before they died and no payment was made."
She added: "This notice has been announced in so many radio and television stations in the South East since August when this announcement was first released."
"This is a private hospital and we need money to keep this facility running and providing care to numerous patients coming to our facility on daily basis."
Ojiaku said the hospital has applied to the court and to the Enugu East Local Government for land where the corpses can be buried.
"As we speak, we have applied to court and the Enugu East local government to give us land where these corpses could be buried. Once we secured land these corpses will be buried," she said.
The hospital’s public notice had stated that if the bodies were not identified and collected within 21 days, it would seek court approval to bury them in a mass grave or another designated area in a public cemetery.
The notice, signed by the hospital management, asked anyone with information about the unclaimed bodies to call the inquiry line, +234 8036010532.
The management said the ultimatum has expired and called on relatives or anyone with useful information to come forward to prevent the mass burial.
The situation highlights a recurring challenge for hospitals across the country, where accident victims deposited by law enforcement agencies are abandoned by families and left in mortuaries for years.
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