Lagos State To Bury Over 100 Unclaimed Dead Bodies Of 2020 Protest Victims

Lagos State announced on Monday that there will be a mass burial of over 100 dead bodies, killed during the 2020 EndSARS protests due to police brutality.

EndSARS is a social movement that gained momentum in October 2020 across Nigeria. The movement was against the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a unit of the Nigerian Police Force, created to fight against armed robbery.

Following alleged extrajudicial killings, torture, and extortion reports against SARS, Nigerians demanded to dissolve the SARS unit. However, the protest in October led to several deaths in the country.

The State government took to Twitter to share that 103 dead bodies, which are not claimed by their relatives shall be taken care of in this mass burial.

"It is public knowledge that the year 2020 #EndSARS crisis that snowballed into violence in many parts of Lagos recorded casualties in different areas of the State and NOT from the Lekki Toll Gate as being inferred in the mischievous publications," the government tweeted.

The tweet clarified that the Lagos State Environmental Health Unit (SEHMU) has found dead bodies from different areas including Fagba, Ketu, Ikorodu, Orile, Ajegunle, Abule-Egba, Ikeja, Ojota, Ekoro, Ogba, Isolo and Ajah, following the aftermath of #EndSARS violence and community clashes.

"The 103 casualties mentioned in the document were from these incidents and NOT from Lekki Toll-gate as being alleged," it added. "For the avoidance of doubt, no body was retrieved from the Lekki Toll Gate incident."

The government claimed that in the aftermath of the EndSARS violence, the office of the Chief Coroner invited members of the public via various methods including public adverts and announcements to identify the bodies - in case their loved ones are missing between Oct. 19 to 27.

Relatives were supposed to undergo DNA tests for identification purposes, done by the Department of Pathology and Forensic Medicine of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH).

The tweet further mentioned that even after three years, the bodies are unclaimed and creating congestion in the morgues.

"This spurred the need to decongest the morgues - a procedure that follows very careful medical and legal guidelines in the event that a relative may still turn up to claim a lost relative years after the incident," it continued.

Lagos State government added, "Decongestion of our public morgues is a periodic and regular exercise approved by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to free up space in mortuaries that have a large number of unclaimed bodies."

After the mass burial announcement, the government received criticism. A Twitter user named Rinu Oduala, who serves as a human rights activist, said that families of EndSARS victims killed by the police forces showed up to get the bodies of their loved ones including a 20-year-old Nigerian reporter named Pelumi Onifade's mother.

"They were asked to drop DNA samples. They dropped," she wrote. "Lagos State government never did any DNA test for the samples collected."

Many more such tweets were shared on Twitter following the announcement.