Three suspects have been detained during the raid in southern Nigeria after police found 20 mummified bodies at a building in Benin City, the capital of the West African nation’s Edo state.
Police spokeswoman Jennifer Iwegbu told reporters that armed police officers raided the building, acting on intelligence that it was a “suspected ritual shrine” run by cultists.
“Fifteen mummified male corpses, three mummified female corpses and two mummified child corpses were discovered at the scene' just three miles (5 kilometers) from the city center”, Iwegbu said.
She added that all three detainees were young males and that a police medical team was part of the investigations. According to her, “an intensive effort is ongoing to arrest the other fleeing suspects.”
Iwegbu also said that it was not immediately clear how long the bodies had been in the building, with interrogations of the suspects under way.
The News Agency of Nigeria has, meanwhile, cited the Edo Police Command as saying in a statement that “there are a lot of speculations going around that the place [the Benin City building] is a quack morgue where they preserve bodies.”
“We are going to leave the situation for the police to do their investigations and brief the public on what was going on there. The governor has given 7 days for them to come back with details of what they found; if it was just a morgue, any ritual involved or what is the situation”, the statement pointed out.