Health experts have raised the alarm over the practice of keeping corpses at home by families to prepare for the burials of their loved ones, lamenting that such practices are capable of endangering the lives of community members for disease outbreaks.
A public health analyst, Julius Swende, who disclosed this during a telephone conversation with our correspondent in Makurdi, said there are bacteria that live on even when the infected person is dead, and keeping such a corpse at home to prepare for burial can spread them to an unsuspecting members of the public.
Our correspondent, who spoke to some people, including Ayila Zaamo, Akor Tokwo, and Asen Saamo, said the reason why most people have resorted to keeping the corpses of their loved ones at home is due to the hardship experienced by citizens following the removal of fuel subsidy.
According to the public health analyst, instead of endangering the lives of community members, “I want to advise anyone who lost his or her loved one and cannot afford the mortuary bills to use the natural mortuary our forefathers were practising after confirming the death of a relation they communicate to members of the family and proceed to bury him or her immediately and do the burial rites afterwards, this, in turn, will help to nip in the bud diseases outbreaks and public health crises.”
A man identified as Humbeh Aswah, who lost his stepmother, told our correspondent that left for him, he prefers burying immediately just like Muslims do, in order not to stress family members, but because of cultural differences, no one will agree with him. Hence, there is no money to keep her in the morgue “we have agreed to keep her at home to prepare for her burial.”
He said, “There are some families who, in the name of befitting burials, keep running away after the burial because of debt which they incurred during the burial, which for me is not the best thing to do. The paramount thing is to look after the family he or she might have left behind.”
However, in an interview with Mama Mbadzedan Mzehemen, she differs, as she said that most of the corpses kept at home in the name of preparing for burials are people who are poor and without children, especially female children. She warned against the pressure heaped on female children in the name of burials.
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