the dead that no one mourns - INACIF story

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Nobody cried. No one brought flowers to the grave. No one wished them the typical "rest in peace". No one. As no mourner claimed their bodies, it was the State's turn to take charge and spend up to more than RD $ 50,000 on each one, because they were corpses that had to be prepared and buried, like everyone else, even if these are the forgotten dead.

SANTO DOMINGO. On a stainless-steel table was a rigid body that was previously brought without life to Darío Contreras Hospital, after being found with multiple injuries on a public road. It was packed and labeled, in the same was a protect suitcase that would be sent to a distant trip that would depart on January 5 of this year. It was one of the corpses preserved that way since 2016 as part of a pilot phase of a program by the National Institute of Forensic Sciences (Inacif).

Sex: male; identity: unknown; nationality: unknown; Age: between 14-19 years. His identification was A-1119-2017, corresponding to the autopsy code that was performed by Inacif personnel in the Institute's unit at Marcelino Vélez Santana Hospital.

Luis Reyes, an autopsy technician, was part of the team that worked for two hours to prepare it with a cold normality. If it was a child, it would appeal to his feelings, or someone he knew; like that time he was struck by the realization that a corpse was that of his neighbor.

- It's not tedious, this is normal - he said as he touched the packaged body.

- You touch the corpse like it’s nothing.

- Yes, because the technician is the one that cuts the corpse, opens the head (...). You must change the bag, place the organs so that the corpse does not leak, no liquid emanates from the body. Then it is put in a new bag and the packing is carried out.

-Did you imagine that one day you could be the corpse?

-Yes, that is why working here makes you more human, because you have to learn to value life more; if not, you will end up on one of these tables.


It was in the first fortnight of December 2017 when they took A-1119-2017 to the unit of the Inacif of the Cristo Redentor cemetery, where the bodies found in the Great Santo Domingo in a state of decomposition and other unclaimed fresh bodies are sent.

They could not keep him in the morgue anymore. They had 21 corpses waiting for identification and being claimed, and the capacity is between 10 or 11. The rot and the waste of the bodies (entrails, clothing ...) contaminated the area and emanated a strong stench.

-What do they do with the waste? -we asked Sonia Lebrón, a forensic anthropologist in charge of the unit.

-We evaluate what we can do with them, whether we keep them or send them to be inhumed.

- Why do you keep them?

- Remember that these are legal cases.

- As evidence?

-Could be.
 

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If the National Police Headquarters, the 9-1-1 Emergency System or a detachment receive the warning of the discovery of a corpse, the event is reported to the competent authorities, among them the Inacif. The team is despatched to the place to lift the body. Depending on what the Public Prosecutor's Office decides and the possible causes of death, the remains may be taken to a unit of the Inacif or Pathology (which deals with clinical cases).

Law 136 of the year 1980 establishes that the practice of judicial autopsy is mandatory in the instance of any death case when there are indications or suspicions that it was provoked by criminal means, or criminal violence; that it was sudden and the person enjoyed apparent good health; if the deceased was in prison; if death results from an abortion or premature birth or if there was a suicide or suspicion of such.

Autopsies began to be officially done by the end of the 1980s, when the Institute of Forensic Pathology was created. At the beginning of the 90s the unclaimed corpses were taken care of.

Once the body is in the Inacif, a protocol time (15 to 30 days) is allotted for someone to identify and claim it; if it is from a foreigner, by an embassy, if a relative does not appear. There have been cases in which more time has passed, such as when the body of a Venezuelan was kept for months while the repatriation efforts were made.

It is in this phase of waiting that for many dead mourners do not appear or there is no way to identify them, either because of the advanced state of putrefaction or by the lack of documents. They become a burden for the State that assumes the logistics that includes the expenses of the autopsy, conservation, municipal tax at the cemetery and burial, which may exceed RD $ 50,000, as calculated by the general director of Inacif, Francisco Gerdo.

In 2017, Inacif reports the nationwide survey of 6,611 corpses collected, 2,844 autopsies carried out and 146 unclaimed bodies. The latter cost the State estimated RD $ 5 million to RD $ 7.3 million. In that year, the amount allocated in the Public Budget for forensic services and forensic investigation was RD $ 154,791,988.


Lucy Alcántara, coordinator of the Forensic Medicine sub-directorate of the Inacif, estimates that since 2015 there have been more than 100 unclaimed bodies each year.

The nationality or identity of many are not known but because of their characteristics forensics has determined something: many are Haitians.

"Here we have many Haitians and the cases of the Haitians who die here very few are claimed; I would say that due to condition of the resources," said Gerdo. "These people do not show up at the institution to claim them; maybe they do not have the resources to repatriate them to Haiti, or maybe they do not want to invest money in that. "

There is also another variable.

"You can have another case, a person can be destitute; it can be person in a type of situation that could not be identified," Gerdo observed.

But sometimes those bodies have disinterested relatives and there are no mechanisms to force them to take responsibility.

"We have a child still there, I cannot tell you which child; that parents still did not claim him, and he has even been identified since he arrived at the morgue. They know it's their son, but they do not take him away ", Miguel Núñez reported. He is a director of the forensic pathology unit of Inacif in the Marcelino Vélez Santana Hospital, where the fresh bodies of the Gran Santo Domingo (3.5 million inhabitants) are taken.
 

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Patients without pain
There are places where unclaimed bodies first arrive alive: hospitals.

Dr. Francisco Torres has to administer a 200-bed public center, surrounded by populous neighborhoods such as the Capotillo, Simón Bolívar, 24 de Abril, Gualey, Villas Agrícolas and La Zurza. It is the Hospital Francisco Moscoso Puello of the National District, among whose patients there are indigent people who move around the area.

In the care centers they have to deal with the same as in the Inacif: when a death occurs and nobody claims the body, it must be registered and its final destination sought.

In a month in the Moscoso Puello there can be up to three unclaimed bodies waiting to be claimed while their identity is disclosed in the interest of those looking for them.

In the first week of January the hospital managed the burial of two in a location the center utilizes: in the Cristo Salvador cemetery of Santo Domingo Este. Last year they were 32. In each case RD $ 5,500 is spent, which includes the payment of the hole and the coffin. The budget of the hospital is RD $ 4.6 million per month, informed its director.

"There should be another mechanism because at hospitals we do not have a big budget and we have to dedicate time to care for the living," said Torres.
 

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A funeral without tears

In the unit of Christ the Redeemer the legal time for someone to claim A-1119-17 passed, but it never happened.

They decided that it was necessary to bury him as well as the body of an 80-year-old woman, with an identified name, undocumented and without relatives, who was taken to the hospital without vital signs and declared deceased on December 9. Her death was natural.

In addition, the of an unknown male of 30-40 years, found with multiple trauma next to the Autopista Duarte, at the height of La Cumbre, in Villa Altagracia. It was lifted on December 12. It was in an advanced state of decomposition and the evidence collected in the place coincided with the fact that it was impacted by a motor vehicle.

It was also necessary to bury two extremities (one leg and one foot) that locals found in September in plastic bags, separately, in the avenue Mirador del Este, in the province of Santo Domingo, and in a dumpster in front of the Los Cazabes cemetery.

The personnel of the unit would return just there, to the Los Cazabes municipal cemetery, in Santo Domingo Norte, where three weeks before they buried another 13 bodies that no one claimed. For that group there was more than one trip to transport them all.


That winter morning of January 5, with the gray sky and a temperature cooled by the remnants of the polar cold that affected the country at that time, a van of the Inacif left the Cristo Redentor cemetery, in the National District, and left behind the cemetery where the ex-president Joaquín Balaguer and the PRD leader José Francisco Peña Gómez are buried.

After 20 minutes of travel, it began to stink. Everything indicated that Duquesa landfill was already close. It is in the periphery of Duquesa where Los Cazabes cemetery is located; it comprises an area of 58,000 m² and, in addition to receiving ordinary burials, it has been used since the 1990s to bury unclaimed corpses from Pathology and Inacif of all the Great Santo Domingo. Last year they buried 81.

The forensic Lebrón found it difficult to find space in the cemetery that already almost exhausted its capacity. The tombs on the ground are so close to one another that there is a risk of digging where there was a burial already. But there is no alternative, the other public cemeteries of the demarcation are also full.

The van was parked and the staff dropped four coffins: one with A-1119-2017, two more with the other two bodies and another with the limbs.

As it had rained the previous night, it was more burdensome for the gravediggers to excavate the holes because the earth was wet. They even made one more.

One by one they placed the coffins near the corresponding graves and, with care, lowered them down with the help of ropes. It was a technical, mechanical effort.

Suddenly "a stranger" appears on the scene. He is a man who lives next to the cemetery and who decided to approach to observe the burial. His interest was to see that they did it correctly because - he said - "sometimes bad smells (sic) reach his house". The staff of Inacif asked him to step aside. He did it and stared.

Without a few words of farewell, the earth was thrown over each coffin under the watchful eye of the concerned neighbor, employees of the cemetery, the Diario Libre team and a few onlookers who also live nearby.

Nobody cried. Nobody brought them flowers. No one wished them the typical "rest in peace". No one.
 

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The old common graves

Other four regional Inacif offices use cemeteries of their jurisdiction or from where the body was lifted. For the one in the north, - where the other morgue for decomposed bodies is located - available spaces from the Cristo Vivo cemetery (El Ingenio) in Santiago are used.

In the northeast (San Francisco de Macoris), south (Azua) and east (San Pedro de Macoris), logistics changes and can be simplified for reasons of technical availability. In those demarcations they took care of 30 corpses last year.

Unlike Los Cazabes, where the tombs are individual, in Santiago the burial of the unclaimed is rustic. They are called holes, but they are rather common graves where they bury several bodies in a single hole, to save space, usually without any signage. In its records the Inacif counted six such holes for the beginning of 2018 locates by coordinates. Last year they buried 32.

"There are many dead," said a gravedigger from El Ingenio while pointing to a mound of earth that was recently moved. "They tell me, such a day they come with them, and I dig the holes, I dig them deep."

As in this region the pilot program of packaging does not apply, the bodies are deposited in mortuary bags.

One day, when there was a burial, two men were lifting a mortuary cover by its four corners. on the white plastic that the bag there were large black letters that encoded the corpse that they buried: A-576-17.


Collective burial in the same hole has been used throughout the world for centuries. Before the existing cemetery style existed, the deceased of high social or political class were buried in the interior of the churches; the rest of the population was buried in common graves or in the courtyards of religious temples.

The researcher Franklin Gutiérrez published in his book “On cemeteries, men and tombs”, that the monastery of San Francisco, located in the heart of the Colonial City, housed the corpses of many poor people never claimed by their relatives.

Another researcher, Amparo Chantada, in “The cemetery of Avenida Independencia and walled Santo Domingo”, recalls that most of the dead of the Revolution of April 1965 were buried in the common grave that is located at the east end of the entrance of the cemetery founded in 1824. In an article published in the local press, she also stressed that the same happened during the Haitian occupation (1822-1844), the annexation to Spain, the restoration of the Republic, during the diseases and epidemics of the late nineteenth century, the cyclone San Zenón and the dictatorship of Trujillo.

Another common grave in disuse has been identified in the San José Obrero cemetery, in the Cristo Rey neighborhood, opened in 1949. A large cross formed on a concrete floor is reminiscent of what it was.
 

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A mourner appeared; body needs to be exhumed

“After I work on this, I do not go out at night, very seldom if it's an emergency," Agustin Campos said as he rested from throwing the dirt to cover the graves of Los Cazabes.

After working constructing niches in the Cristo Redentor cemetery, he began last year at the morgue in the Inacif to earn RD $ 16,100 per month. “Morguero” they call the one who receives the body, enters it in the refrigerator or delivers it to their relatives.

- One can easily go out into the street at night and get killed, because the streets are very dangerous - he said.
-You said you also worry about watching the news, why?
-Because the boss said: It is good that you watch the news, because that’s how you find out and learn more (of the corpse that will reach you).
- Do not you need the liturgy, the tears, the words of farewell?
-It touches me a little, because I was already forced to see the burials.

The absence of a relative or friend who regrets death can be reversed on the least expected day. Relatives who were looking for an absent relative end up in the offices of Inacif, anxious to know if he is dead.
They are isolated cases.

Some time ago Dr. Núñez attended a citizen. He said that his relative had been killed.
-How do you know he was killed? Nunez asked.
-Because he had enemies.
The doctor stood up and searched the registry for tentative dates of death. Verified the records of the autopsies of strangers. After he classified them, he warned the interested party. There was a lady who was willing to see the photo archived of the corpse but broke into tears. Her son gathered courage and said: “I'm going to see the photographs”.
They approached the computer. They reviewed three cases and they were not of the relative. When they reached the fourth one in which the image of a fresh body was seen, the man said: “That's my brother”.
- Are you sure? the doctor asked him.
-Yes.
- Ok, this is your brother, how did you recognize him?
- Because he had a tattoo, a scar ...

Núñez reviewed the photographs and certainly it was man’s brother. The man began to cry; He told the lady and she collapsed. The body had to be exhumed.

The doctor does not consider exhumation to be more complicated than the autopsy. If the remains are in a niche, the closing seal is broken; if they are on the ground, a person is to be unearthed.

The family took the coffin to the cemetery. The skeleton was removed and put into the new box. They took him to the morgue to finish the certification process.

***

Would it be more feasible for the State to cremate the unclaimed corpses? - we asked the director general of Inacif.

"As far as I know an incineration, or rather cremation of a corpse costs RD $ 50,000 in the private sector (Diario Libre confirmed the amount). The cost of establishing and maintaining this process for the State would have to be analyzed. And in the long term I think it can be more expensive because the land is reused " - Gerdo replied.

When it says that the land is reused, it refers to what takes place in the El Ingenio de Santiago cemetery, where after a while the bones can be removed and accumulated in an ossuary that looks more like a cistern.

In this cemetery RD $ 2,000 must be paid every four years to renew the rent of a municipal niche. If it is not done and the niche is needed, the bones are exhumed. The bones are deposited in covers or bags to which a plastic bottle containing a paper with the data of the deceased is attached as identification.

Last December the ossuary overflowed its capacity. There were small sacks stacked between the tombs and some other bones scattered around.

Those unclaimed bones after a long time can be donated to the universities for the use by medical students.

Ideally, the Inacif should have its own cemetery or dedicated areas within existing ones for better management, considers its CEO.

Gerdo reported that the proposal to build continuous niches for Inacif has been created, an idea that was developed after training in Peru, where a team traveled and learned how to improve these processes. From that experience the pilot of the type of packaging that was made to A-1119-2017 was adopted. Dealing with forgotten corpses is a situation that other countries such as Honduras, Chile, Spain, Puerto Rico and Mexico.

The forensic Lebrón said that the mayor of Santo Domingo Norte authorized last December to build niches in Los Cazabes, with capacity for 120 openings, in a first stage.

Despite the plans, Dr. Núñez is adamant in stating:

-The interest of the State is that each person takes care of their deceased.
 

AlterEgo

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Interesting article, thanks for posting it.

Just yesterday we were talking about an older cousin of my husband, who disappeared many years ago.  The family assumed he died somewhere without identification.

 I’m told that back then the unknown, unclaimed bodies often ended up at one of the medical schools.  Things have changed.