Rising water levels in Bayelsa State have now exhumed corpses from their shallow graves at the State cemetery located off Azikoro village road in Yenagoa.
For over two weeks, residents say the stench from the cemetery has become unbearable after the flood uncovered the corpses.
Bayelsa has a land mass of 10,773 km²; more than half of that has been covered by floods. Affected citizens have endured an unimaginable struggle to stay afloat after experiencing one of the most devastating floods to hit the state and region in many years.
One of the workers in the cemetery told reporters that the water levels in the cemetery keep rising and is exhuming buried caskets and bodies.
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He said: “As the water was coming, I saw something flowing out. Immediately I saw it, the first one was a casket, and the second one was without a casket. I don’t know what to do. I had to drag them with my colleagues to the corner side of the cemetery because that time, the corner side of the cemetery water was not in this level.”
Residents have cried out to the government to help them fumigate the area and consider evacuating them to safe zones. They fear the unfathomable health hazards bodies exhumed by the flood will bring and consider evacuating them to safe zones.
Bayelsa state government announced that it would send relief materials through the waterways to affected areas.
