Many people have been left in shock after a teenager who died by drowning was found sitting outside over a week later.

The incident happened outside a mortuary at CEBEC hospital in Douala, Cameroon, forcing a large crowd to gather and see his body.

According to reports, the 17-year-old had gone to swim at Bellevue Hotel in Douala and he drowned in the pool on Sunday, Jan. 28. His body was then deposited in the mortuary.

Eight days after he drowned, mortuary attendants found him sitting in a chair outside the mortuary on Monday, Feb. 5. The deceased who had been naked when placed in the mortuary was seen wearing a white robe and underwear.

This discovery sent shockwaves around the hospital and caused a crowd to gather outside the mortuary.

The body of the deceased teen has now been “sent back to the mortuary”.

The head mortician, Louis Maries Mbella, told reporters that he was alerted by the security guard at the mortuary section of the Cebec hospital in Bonaberi Douala that the young man brought in the week before has left the mortuary and was now sitting outside.

Mbella said: “It was around 3am (Monday) when the security guard knocked at my door to inform me that someone had taken a chair to sit outside. I approached the young man and asked him, ‘Why did you take this chair outside, and when they asked you refused to react?’ He said nothing.”

Mbella said he asked the teen the question again and received no response.

“I now put on my phone’s torch light and pointed at him, that is when I discovered that it was the young man who died last Sunday. I went inside to check if truly he was the one and I discovered that he was not where we had embalmed and left him. All those inside were naked but he was outside, eyes closed, but he was smiling,” Louis Mbella narrated.

Born in 2006, 17-year-old Poupog Kevin is said to have murmured the words, “Anne you promised me,” according to an eye witness at the scene.

However, the deceased boy’s mother, Catherine Kouete, refused to believe the story and she asked how her dead son could move or speak after spending one week in the mortuary.

“How can a dead body move like that and sit on a chair? It doesn’t sound well to me. I think it is a setup. I don’t know… we have never seen this,” the grieving mother told reporters.

But the Chief Mortician said this is not the first time they have seen strange things happen to bodies under their care. He said they sometimes discover bodies have moved from the positions where they were left.

The clothes, underwear, and socks worn by Poupog Kevin after he was found outside have been set on fire and his body returned to the mortuary after traditional rites were performed in the presence of his family.