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A medical student in Nigeria is speaking out about the day he was horrified to see his friend’s body on the dissection table during anatomy class.

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The incident occurred seven years ago at the University of Calabar. As reported by BlavityEnya Egbe was tasked with dissecting a cadaver and one of the three bodies belonged to his friend, Divine.

“We used to go clubbing together,” Egbe, 26, told BBC. “There were two bullet holes on the right side of his chest.”

Divine’s family had been searching for him after he went missing, according to Egbe. Per the report, Divine and three friends were detained by security agents while walking home after a night out. It was Egbe who contacted the family to inform them of the whereabouts of Devine’s remains.

 

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“Most of the cadavers we used in school had bullets in them. I felt so bad when I realized that some of the people may not be real criminals,” said Oyifo Ana, one of the students who consoled an emotional Egbe during anatomy class on that fateful day.

Here’s more from Blavity:

Egbe was so devastated by finding his friend’s body during class that he fell behind on his studies for weeks, haunted by the image of seeing his peer on the dissection table. He graduated one year behind his classmates and now works in a hospital lab in Delta, an agricultural and oil producing state in Nigeria. 

Ultimately, Divine’s family was able to identify his body and provide him a proper burial.

A current law in the nation allows for “unclaimed bodies” in government mortuaries to be turned over to medical schools, with or without the decedent’s and their families’ consent.

Three out of four cadavers are a part of a lower socio-economic status, with 95% being males between approximately 20 to 40 years old. 

“If no one shows up after a certain length of time, the bodies are sent to teaching hospitals,” senior lawyer Fred Onuobia said. “But the situation is worse with extrajudicial killings, as relatives never get to know about the deaths or are unable to locate the bodies.”

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