A serious attempt was made by mortuary attendants at LASUTH to increase the number of corpses under their care by at least one, when they brutally assaulted a photographer with Leadership Newspapers.
The photographer, Benedict Uwalaka, had a bottle smashed on his head and was severely injured allegedly by the mortuary attendants who accused him of attempting to take shots of the bodies inside the morgue.
The photographer and other journalists were at LASUTH on the invitation of the hospital to cover the release of the corpses of DANA Air crash victims.
Uwalaka, who was later admitted at the hospital where he obtained treatment for injuries sustained in the fracas said he had only gone closer to the vehicle parked at the entrance of the morgue to take a close shot of it.
“What happened is that as a photo journalist, I needed to get a close up photograph of my objective, and when I noticed that a vehicle had been parked across the entrance of the mortuary, I moved closer to get a close-up shot of the vehicle. That was all” he told the Vanguard.
“Before I knew what happened, someone seized my camera, another grabbed my phone as the others charged at me, raining blows all over my body. I was hit in the face by a bottle and ended up with cuts and bruises to my left eye, head and left leg. I was covered with my own blood.”
The incident has been reported at the Area “F” Police Command, GRA, Ikeja.
