Vice News reported that, in an abandoned building on the outskirts of Karachi, an unknown man dies alone. He does not have a phone or any paperwork on his person, nothing at all to indicate his name or address. A passer-by spots this body slumped lifelessly against a wall and calls the Edhi Foundation.
Chipa ambulance along with edhi is doing this job which should be a responsibility of the government. According to Vice News, within a few minutes, the organization dispatches an ambulance to collect the corpse and the work of trying to find out who this anonymous man is can begin.
This is the dilemma of our society. According to Vice News, each year, approximately 3000 unidentified dead bodies are found on the streets of Karachi, the city of lights. Often they are drug addicts or migrant workers, who came in search of employment; there are also bodies of victims of sectarian clashes or gang violence, which is a contributing factor for Karachi’s reputation for violence.
Karachi In this tightly packed city of over 21 million people, some get lost amongst the heaving mass of brick and bodies, ending up unclaimed and alone.
After the dead body collection by the ambulance, the anonymous man is taken to the Edhi mortuary, one of only two functional cold storage units in the whole city. The staff here is constantly exposed to death, dealing with the victims of bomb attacks and gunfire, as well as stepping in to bear the financial burden of burial for families who are too poor to afford it. At the mortuary, the anonymous man is absorbed into a system that is set up to try to find his loved ones and, even if they cannot be tracked down, to restore him some dignity in death.
The Edhi mortuary employees take fingerprints, search the national biometric database, and make phone calls and at the same time dealing with a steady flow of people coming into the mortuary to search for their lost loved ones. Sometimes unclaimed bodies are reunited with their families, a raw emotional collision of grief and relief. If loved ones are not tracked down, Edhi staff takes on the role of family, washing the body and giving full Islamic burial rites at a funeral attended by staff members.
