Cholera burial team gets no rest in Haiti (Feature)

By Silvia Ayuso Dec 3, 2010, 3:28 GMT

Port-au-Prince - The mobile phone of Rochefort Saint-Louis has been ringing non-stop for weeks, and each ring means one thing only: someone has died of cholera in Haiti's Western Province, where Port-au-Prince is located.

Saint-Louis is the coordinator of the so-called Emergency Operations Centre that the Haitian Health Ministry had to create in the face of the rapid spread of a disease whose death toll is quickly approaching 2,000.

His task is to pick up the bodies of anyone who died of cholera or is suspected with having died of the intestinal disease in the region. And he has to take them to the mass graves of Tabarre or Titayen, which also hold scores of thousands of the 230,000 people who died in a devastating earthquake in January.

'I get calls from around the province, everyone has my number,' Saint-Louis says.

It is barely 8 am and the team, 12 men and three trucks, is getting ready for another long day.

'We work everyday, even Sundays,' he says.

He quickly gives instructions for the day: one of the trucks is to head to the border, another to a hospital, and a third - a traditional Haitian 'taptap,' those colourful open trucks that serve as public transportation vehicles in the Caribbean country, - is to go to several places around the capital and its outskirts where people have died at home.

Garr Duvillage is one of the members of the team. He is in charge of 'preparing' the bodies that are picked up everyday, at least two to three corpses per day, he says.

After the outbreak of cholera was made public weeks ago, Duvillage got a crash course on what to do with the bodies.

After weeks of finding dead people of every age and condition, in many cases in the puddles of vomit and diarrhea that can kill a person so fast if not contained quickly, Duvillage still shrugs when asked whether the work is getting to him.

'Someone has to do it,' he says.

There is not much time for talking. Saint-Louis keeps receiving calls, and the day looks most likely to be exhausting. The boss himself leads the convoy, followed by the colourful taptap, which gives off a strong smell of chlorine.

The first stop was to be at the Port-au-Prince suburb of Carrefour, but the convoy changes course half-way: there is a new, urgent call. When the team arrives at a house that was partially destroyed by the quake, they are met with a young father in shock.

Richard Eno still cannot understand what happened. A day earlier he went to visit his wife and two of his children, who are in hospital for serious anaemia. Little Fende, aged 7, went along with him. In the afternoon the girl told him she was not feeling well. A few hours later she lies dead in one of the house's two rooms.

Saint-Louis' team wastes no time. Duvillage and his colleagues, wearing overalls, gloves, plastic boots and face masks, disinfect with chlorine a spot at the entrance of the room where the little girl lies. And they spread out the body bag, also sterilized.

Fende's body is laid upon it. Her father is prevented from approaching, and he watches as preparations start. Cotton wool is used to block all orifices: mouth, eyes, ears, anus. Her head is wrapped in a bandage, until nothing is visible of her face or her hair. They tie her hands and feet. She is sprayed with chlorine.

It is not even certain that Fende died of cholera, although her family says she threw up a lot, and she had diarrhoea.

But in this Haiti that is immersed in yet another tragedy, a cholera epidemic that it had not known for over a century, there is no time for confirmations. All those suspected with having died of cholera are treated the same way, and meet the same end in an anonymous mass grave.

Once the body has been prepared and put in the bag, all the clothes that came into contact with the little girl are put in too. That means virtually all the clothes this family has.

Then Duvillage and his colleagues quickly close the bag, disinfect the room where Fende died and put her remains on the taptap, without making any fuss over the ceremony.

The father does not even get a chance to say goodbye. But once again there is just no time for such details in Haiti. The cholera burial team has to leave fast. Rochefort Saint-Louis' telephone has rung again.

'Another dead one,' he says.

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