Ondo community rejects 120 corpses

TRACKING____Residents and elders of Ikare Akoko in Akoko North East council area have stopped health officials of the state government from burying over 120 abandoned corpses in the community.

The abandoned corpses were to be given mass burial and three local government areas : Akure, Owo and Ikare were picked as the burial places.

It was learnt that the corpses were conveyed in three ambulance vehicles from General Hospital, Iwaro Oka, State Specialist Hospital, Owo and State Specialist Hospital, Ikare Akoko but the elders said they were not informed about the mass burial.

Caretaker Chairman of Akoko North East council area, Mr. Asimi Omojola told newsmen he was not in the office when the corpses were brought in for burial.

Omojola said he was called by an official of the Ondo State Health Management Board (HMB) that land should be provided for the burial of the abandoned corpses.

Oba Akadiri Saliu-Momoh, Olukare of Ikareland and Oba Kolapo Adegbite-Adedoyin, Owa-Ale of Ikareland said such practice was strange to them.

Oba Akadiri Momoh, said burial of strange persons was contrary to the traditional values of Ikareland.

He warned that it could lead to traditional crises and abominable incidences.

”Therefore, such numbers of unknown corpses should not be brought to Ikare and it is against the tradition of the land. As a traditionalist, some dead bodies may be violent, some may have died of some critical diseases which will have some effects on the whole community.

”But the issues need to be considered from various perspective apart from our own thought or imaginations,” the monarch said.

Chief Medical Director, Ikare State Specialist Hospital, Dr Ayodele Ogunlade said the dead bodies were abandoned and the state government considered it necessary to take them to different locations for mass burial.

The CMD assured that it would have no health implication as all the corpses had been treated with necessary chemicals.