Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Nigerian hospital 'overwhelmed by corpses from police'


A Nigerian hospital has told the BBC it is overwhelmed by the number of corpses being brought to them by police.

The Chief Medical Director at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital in Enugu says his staff are being forced to carry out mass burials.

The BBC has established that at least seven people were last seen alive in police custody, accused of kidnapping.

Enugu State Police Commissioner Mohamed Zarewa told the BBC he was too busy to talk about their case.

Nigeria's police have faced strong criticism from human rights groups for carrying out extrajudicial and arbitrary killings.

Amnesty international is presenting the results of a three-year investigation on Wednesday, in which they will describe the level of police killings as shocking.

The BBC has visited the morgue and taken photographs. The images are disturbing.

They show piles of young men, lying on top of one another and strewn about on tables and floors.

In places the corpses are stacked four or five deep.

Officers killed

Records show 75 corpses were delivered to the morgue by police between June and 26 November this year.