Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 23) — With the coronavirus having led to mass fatalities, the International Committee of the Red Cross on Thursday urged authorities to plan and prepare ahead to ensure bodies are handled properly.
Failing to get ready for mass casualties risks burials in mass graves, leading to few records and little understanding of who died and where the body is taken, the international humanitarian institution said.
“[I]t’s imperative that plans are made and, if needed, carried out to help lower the pain that families and broader society feel in the face of a high death toll,” said Oran Finnegan, the head of the ICRC’s forensics unit.
The institution is currently working on body management issues in regions around the world including Asia, Central and South America, the Eur-Asia region, and the Middle East and North Africa.
It noted that funeral homes and morgues in countries not affected by conflict have still gotten quickly overwhelmed with the number of COVID-19 deaths.
“In conflict zones, the situation could be even more dire due to limited capacity to properly handle high numbers of deaths,” said the institution.
With this, ICRC recommended that authorities ensure the safety and well-being of people handling coronavirus fatalities are of utmost priority. “[H]ealth care workers and staff handling the dead must use appropriate personal protective gear,” it said.
Officials must also ensure they have physical structures needed to store bodies and enough burial space.
“For a mourning family, this means having a specific burial place to visit,” said Stephen Fonseca, ICRC’s head of forensics in Africa.
The institution added that proper burial or cremation with identification and documentation must be observed to ensure respect for the deceased and their families. These must also be performed according to cultural and religious needs.
The ICRC reported that in some countries in Asia, the dead have been cremated against their religious beliefs and that of their families.
The humanitarian institution called on authorities to adopt or incorporate international guidelines that “allow both cremation and burial and permit the observing of religious rites and ceremonies as much as safely possible.”
It also called for implementation of preventive measures especially in “detention facilities, refugee camps, and large city slums, including dispelling myths and ensuring preparedness to deal with a higher than normal number of deaths than current capacity can handle.”
COVID-19 has killed over 183,000 people worldwide, with the Philippines registering 462 confirmed deaths.
