Hundreds of strangers turned out for the funeral of a man whose body lay unclaimed in a hospital morgue for months because his family could not be traced.

Over 400 people attended the funeral of Muhammed Yusuf, 77, at Southern Cemetery yesterday - despite never having met him.

Mr Yusuf passed away last December, with his body stored at the morgue in Manchester Royal Infirmary while efforts were made to trace any family.

But after seven months no relatives had been found, and hospital staff began to organise his funeral.

When news spread on social media there were no relatives to attend, hundreds of strangers dropped everything to attend the service Monday afternoon.

Nobody even knew Mr Yusuf’s name until the funeral started, when it was engraved on a plate for his coffin.

The imam at Manchester Royal Infirmary who lead the funeral has described it as ‘a wonderful moment of coming together’.

Imam Siddiq Diwan said: “From Islamic perspective, a funeral cannot be done alone, it has to be done by a few people.

“So I texted two of my fellow Imams to see they could attend and one of them then forwarded that to a WhatsApp group and that went on Facebook.

“It was reaching people as far away as Preston and Blackburn.

“I thought about ten people were coming and when I got there it was hundreds.

“It was a wonderful moment of coming together with old people, young people, white, black, Asian, Middle Eastern.

“They’d all got together and at that point we didn’t even know his name.

“It was amazing, a rallying of the community and quite overwhelming.”

One mourner, who asked to remain anonymous, said: “It wasn’t about being a Muslim, it was about being a good human being.

“Nobody knew this man but people felt that they had to come down and pay their respects to someone who had no family.

“It was a really good turn out.”

It is understood the pensioner took ill at home and then taken to Manchester Royal Infirmary where he was pronounced dead.

The funeral was conducted by Kennedy’s Funeral Service based on Rochdale Road in north Manchester who had to turned to the MRI cleric for advice on the service.