Four held over ‘gruesome’ theft of dead man’s eyes from Chinese hospital

Four people in central China were detained on suspicion of being involved with organ trading after a dead patient’s eyes were taken as his body lay in a hospital mortuary, Chinese media reported.

The man died of organ failure on Tuesday morning at Ningxiang People’s Hospital in Hunan province. When his sister viewed him later that day, she found his eyes were missing, Chongqing-based news portal Cqcb.com said.

“A cotton ball was put in the left eye, while a surgical tool used to expand the eye socket was in the right. His eyeballs were taken away,” the woman wrote on social media platform WeChat.

“I feel so sad. It’s too gruesome.”

By Wednesday, a 30-strong team of police officers had detained four people for alleged theft and defiling a corpse, the report said. Some of them were mortuary employees.