Lagos | Thursday
A MASS burial planned for unclaimed bodies of hundreds of people who died in a stampede fleeing an explosion of a munitions store last month has been postponed, said a senior official.
”The mass burial, earlier scheduled for Thursday has been postponed indefinitely…and it may no longer be necessary,” Lagos State Information Commissioner Dele Alake said.
More than 1 000 people, mostly youths, died while fleeing explosions on January 27 at the army cantonment in the Ikeja district of Lagos.
”The postponement of the mass burial is due to the fact that some relations are still coming forward to claim the corpses and we do not want to deny them that right.
”We will give a few more days for these bodies to be claimed from the mortuaries. If all the bodies have been claimed, the mass burial may be unnecessary,” Alake said.
Of the more than 700 corpses taken to mortuaries in Lagos over the past week, some 120 corpses are still there, the commissioner said. Meanwhile, Alake said Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu paid a visit on Wednesday to two districts in the city where bloody clashes erupted on Saturday between rival ethnic communities.
The governor appealed for calm in Mushin and Idi-Araba, and promised government assistance to resettle those displaced from three days of fighting.
At least 100 people were killed in the clashes between Hausa and Yoruba communities in Mushiun district.
Authorities deployed soldiers on Monday to restore order. – Sapa-AFP