Corpse abandoned in Y’de mortuary for 11 yrs!

By Cyril Nwoazeke in Yaounde

Authorities of the Jamot Hospital in Yaounde are in a confused state over an abandoned corpse that has spent eleven years in the hospital mortuary.

As the confusion persists, the hospital director, Yves Mathieu  Zoa Nanga has reportedly written to the minister of public health; asking his advice about what to do with the corpse that now appears nightmarish to the hospital authority.

The Guardian Post gathered that the controversy that surround the abandoned corpse that has been “identified” as that of one Alo’o Mve started way back in December 2001.

According to the head of the Jamot mortuary attendants, Lucien Betchem, family members of the deceased who showed up on December 12, 2001 to collect his remains for burial rejected it when the corpse was already dressed up.

While a few members of the family identified the disputed corpse as that of Alo’o Mve, a majority of the family rejected it outright; saying the corpse dressed up and presented to them did not in anyway look like Alo’o Mve.

As tempers flared between the family members on the one hand and the mortuary attendants on the other; that afternoon of December 12, 2001, the Yaounde judicial police authorities were called in.

To calm down rising tempers, the police on arrival at the Jamot Hospital ordered the mortuary attendants to remove all the corpses for identification by the deceased’s family members. A move which sparked more fire as the family went wild when they discovered that the corpse of Alo’o Mve was not among those displayed.

As the controversy ensured, several Jamot mortuary attendants were arrested while investigations went through the judicial police, the gendarmerie and the state counsel but the remains of Alo’o Mve were never found.

Meanwhile, no one has since December 2001 showed up to collect the rejected corpse that has now been christened “Alo’o Mve”.

It is being suspected that Alo’o Mve’s corpse might have mistakenly been buried along side other abandoned corpses in early December 2001; days before his family showed up to collect his remains.

But as the Jamot Hospital mortuary attendants head told Cameroon Tribune “we cannot hand over the rejected corpse to municipal authorities for burial without authorization from justice because a family can show up one day to collect it.”