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Sunday, Jan 17, 2010
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Where bodies never made it to the graves

Anindita Ramaswamy

Port-au-Prince: Death is so normal in a country numbed by disaster that craters gouged out by the earthquake in which putrid, decomposing bodies are dumped have become acceptable. The reality of death in Haiti cannot be described in words and pictures. And, as the government closes its eyes to this horror, you wish that you could too.

The mass dumping grounds for bodies provide a surreal snapshot of what the earthquake has done to people here — it has robbed them of their humanity. So, this is what dying in Haiti means: At the National Cemetery, Port-au-Prince’s largest, scores of bodies never made it to graves. They were brought here to be left amid the concrete crypts, mourners and rubble of grave stones.

As you enter the cemetery, stung by the stench of death from bodies exposed to the heat, humidity and dust, you can hear the strains of a woman’s broken voice singing for the dead. She’s surrounded by other women who are holding onto each other to prevent themselves from collapsing in grief. Their cries escalate into shrieks and then anger, and echo through the grounds. But before you can approach them you have to negotiate your way through bloated bodies that have been discarded on the narrow path. Most of them are covered with flies. Some of them have their hands and legs tied with string. All of them are oozing with pus and faecal matter, the fluids streaming down a slope. Roosters and hens crow over them, pecking at the periphery.

A cemetery implies death with dignity, a calm passage into another world, a quiet end to a life well spent. But not in Haiti, where it seems that all sense of decency has been swallowed up by the earthquake.

Governance absent

Scores of bodies have also been dumped in a large crater in the cemetery. A security guard said they were brought by locals and not through officials of the government, which has been largely absent in the crisis. They have been tossed like garbage — men, women and children — some with their coffins, others not even given that cover.

In Haiti, there’s a rush to dispose of the dead — partly because there is no space to accommodate bodies that are being retrieved from the rubble each day. But the main reason is the fear that decomposing bodies are dangerous. A persistent myth in Haiti is that the dead pose a serious health risk and bodies need to be disposed of quickly to prevent epidemics. — DPA

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