There are currently over 60 unidentified corpses at the mortuary in Banjul, according to Kebba Sanneh, the principal public relations officer of Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital (EFSTH). She claims that they are not allowed to bury them unnamed.

“It is confirmed that the mortuary has deceased bodies, some of which have been here for a considerable amount of time. Some bodies appear to have been here for about seven years, while others appear to have been here for longer than seven years, the speaker stated.

Sanneh admitted that they had issues identifying the dead bodies in a special interview with The Point published Wednesday. Occasionally, police officers bring deceased bodies to this institution. Police will frequently make every effort to identify these bodies. Unfortunately, it came to pass that these bodies were unidentified. It would therefore be quite difficult to bury them in our customary manner, whether it be a Muslim or Christian manner.
Burials ought to be performed with consideration for the deceased’s religious beliefs. Consequently, this is only possible if we identify these bodies. They are being held at the mortuary for this reason, among others.

“After identification, they will be given to their individual families so they can be buried with dignity. But for now, there’s nothing we can do but keep them here. He clarified, “As an institution, we don’t have the right to bury dead people that we don’t know how they came about.

We are keeping them here until the people who brought them here take the appropriate action, since it is all we can do. We have about fifty unidentified deceased bodies at the mortuary as of the last time we looked.
He said, “These dead bodies come to the hospital at different times.” He remarked, “These dead bodies also include female, male, young, and old people.”

“We would like to think that some of these individuals were discovered deceased. However, an inquiry has revealed what may have caused their demise. I’m not arguing that these aren’t unintentional killings or deaths, but they are strange since we should be anticipating a police report and the results of the post-mortems performed on the bodies to provide some indication as to why they might have died.

“It is evident that some of these dead bodies date from that period, even if we are unsure if they are victims of the previous dictatorship. It is not possible for us to accuse them of being murdered. There isn’t any proof of that. We are aware that they arrive at the mortuary motionless, and we are doing everything within our power to keep them here.