A simple burial for the Jakarta's unclaimed dead

By Emmy Fitri

JAKARTA (JP): Biased treatment is the last thing morgue workers can indulge in when they are dealing with the city's unclaimed bodies.

But families can rest assured that a missing relative, who may have ended up at the Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital morgue as an unidentified corpse, was treated as well as could be expected.

All bodies receive a proper burial complete with Moslem prayers.

Every morgue has its share of horror stories but this does not account for the impartial treatment of unclaimed bodies by morgue workers here.

"God sees everything," Atjip, a senior morgue official, said by way of explanation.

"It's the duty of the living to take care of the dead. It just so happens that it's the job of the morgue to take care of unidentified bodies.

"It's a sin if we see a dead body lying around and do nothing about it. We treat them as if they were from our family.

"Who knows, God forbid, if one of these days we stumble into an accident and nobody recognizes our body."

The Cipto Mangunkusumo morgue buries about 40 unclaimed bodies every month.

Police send all of Jakarta's unidentified bodies to the morgue. The bodies are usually kept in the morgue's refrigerator for five days -- allowing relatives time to claim their beloved -- before they are buried, Mardiyono, the head of the morgue, said.

If police request a postmortem examination, a body may be kept for up to seven days, he said.

Morgue workers inspect and keep records of all bodies before they are placed in storage.

Unclaimed bodies are removed from the refrigerators en masse once a week.

Six workers were involved in a recent cleanup, which was occasionally punctuated with morgue jokes and laughter -- a sign that, for them, this was just another day at work.

They unloaded the bodies from the refrigerator and sprayed them with water and antiseptic liquid, taking care not to damage the decomposing bodies.

The corpses are then wrapped in unbleached cotton and plastic -- the way all dead Moslems are treated -- before being placed in coffins due to their state of deterioration.

A shortage of coffins often means that infants are put together in one coffin or placed alongside an adult.

The coffins are taken to an adjacent hall for the prayer ceremony, which is led by a morgue worker.

"We can only say prayers in the Moslem way. It's the only way we know," Atjip said, adding that all morgue staff are Moslems.

"I think it's the goodwill that counts."

So what is the fate of unclaimed bodies after the morgue procedures have been completed?

The public funeral agency is responsible for burials at either Semper Cemetery in North Jakarta or Pondok Ranggon Cemetery in East Jakarta, the final resting places for unidentified corpses.

"Ten years ago we buried the 'unknowns' at Tegal Alur Public Cemetery in West Jakarta but because of the residential growth there, the city opened these two cemeteries," R. Soetardjo, the head of the funeral agency's planning division, said.

The agency allocates a plot, transports the body from the morgue to the cemetery, provides the coffins and the wooden grave marker, which lists the available details.

At the cemetery, there is a straightforward, simple burial for all. There are no tears, no emotion and no chanting of prayers which usually accompanies a private burial.

If relatives come forward after the burial, the wooden grave marker should help the agency locate the bodies.

Police or officials from the morgue, which has details about the bodies and any personal belongings, can help families ensure that the unidentified person was their loved one.

But the public funeral agency will not exhume bodies until six months after the burial, Soetardjo said.

"Newly buried bodies ooze gas that could be hazardous to anyone who comes into contact with it," he said. "We have to wait for the sake of the relatives as well as the grave workers."

And a recently buried body would not be a pleasant sight, he said.

There are, however, exceptions to the rule.

Police often require the agency to exhume bodies as part of a criminal investigation.

"In the name of justice, they can be exhumed any time the police require it," he said.