Professional Management of Mass Fatality Incidents: A Framework for South South Nigeria

Mass fatality incidents arising from oil infrastructure explosions, marine transportation disasters, and communal violence require coordinated professional management frameworks that integrate forensic, medical, and emergency response functions. This study develops a professional management framework for mass fatality incidents in the South South geopolitical zone, drawing on lessons from documented incidents between 2015 and 2024. A professional development framework design was employed, conducting structured case analyses of eight mass fatality incidents in the zone, interviews with forty emergency response professionals including forensic pathologists, police, military, and civil defence personnel, and benchmarking of current practices against the INTERPOL Disaster Victim Identification guidelines and the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination framework. The study identifies gaps in victim identification capacity, evidence preservation, family liaison protocols, and inter-agency coordination specific to the South South operational environment. Findings reveal the absence of a pre-established mass fatality management plan in any of the surveyed states, resulting in improvised responses characterised by evidence contamination, delayed identification, and inadequate family notification. An original South South Mass Fatality Management Framework is developed, incorporating waterborne scene access protocols specific to the Niger Delta environment. Recommendations include adoption of the framework by state emergency management agencies across all six South South states and biennial simulation exercises to build institutional readiness. Keywords: mass fatality management, disaster victim identification, South South Nigeria, emergency response, forensic coordination.