Family members of the burnt corpses at the Enugwu-ukwu General Hospital, Njikoka Local Government Area of Anambra State, have tasked the hospital management to provide them with the DNA results of the corpses.

The aggrieved family members had earlier in the week blocked the entrance of the hospital, preventing staff members, patients and visitors from getting in or getting out.

The protesters regretted that they had waited for two months after the incident without getting any information from the hospital management regarding the DNAs so they could give their loved ones a befitting burial.

News Express reports that the General Hospital morgue was in December last year gutted by a mystery fire, which burnt and defaced about 80 corpses deposited there.

Following the incident, the corpses were transferred to the Odumegwu Ojukwu University Teaching Hospital for government pathologists to run DNA tests on the corpses so as to help families identify their loved ones.

So far, about four corpses have been identified and buried by their family members but the protesters claimed that the burnt corpses of their loved ones have been dumped at the back of the Teaching Hospital in Awka “for vultures to feast on”.

Though the cause of the inferno is yet to be ascertained, the protesting families wondered why the State Government was yet to set up a panel of enquiry to look into the issue, two months after the ugly incident happened or at least reach an understanding with the affected families of the unidentified corpses.

One of the protesters, Mr. Christian Okoye, whose mother, Mrs Amoge Okoye, was among the burnt corpses, said that the protesters locked the entrance gate to the hospital so as to demand from government the corpse of their loved ones.

His words: “Over 200 corpses were burnt in that morgue but till date, the (state) government has not deemed it worthy to set up a panel of enquiry.

“We have a deputy governor who is from this town, Enugwu-ukwu, yet they want this matter to die a natural death.

“We want to know who is responsible for the act, otherwise, we hold the government responsible for the act.

“We demand DNA test to identify the corpses of our loved ones or a mass burial organised to give the dead the last respect as we do in Igbo land.”

Update news