92 unclaimed bodies buried in mass grave in Papua New Guinea

• 92 remains from Port Moresby General Hospital’s mortuary are interred.
• Mortuaries have trouble meeting demand for space.
• There have been mass graves there before, but never bodies.

Unclaimed bodies discovered rotting in an outside shed have been interred with others in a mass grave in Papua New Guinea, the nation’s capital.

Following the funeral, a viral social media video that purported to show extra bodies from the mortuary of the Port Moresby General Hospital in the shed went viral.

40 of the 92 buried bodies—not all of which were discovered in the shed—were youngsters.

According to the hospital, the government has given the mortuary more funding till 2023.

In a shed outside, at least ten victims were seen, lying on bunks and hospital beds and covered in blankets.

In Papua New Guinea, where temperatures typically range from the upper 20s to the mid-30s C, it is presently the wet season.

Despite having a location inside the hospital, the National Capital District Commission, the local government entity, is in charge of the mortuary.

As Port Moresby’s population has increased, the mortuary has had a difficult time accommodating the demand for available space.

James Naipo, president of the National Doctors’ Association, claimed that the hospital had not been renovated since it was built to accommodate 400,000 people although though it served a population of over one million.

“Right now, no extension to Port Moresby General Hospital has been done to cater for well over 1.3 million people in the city, in spite of availability of NCD Health services, private health services and military health services on the ground,” he said in a statement.

But the hospital said the morgue was overcrowded because of family members not collecting bodies in “a timely manner”.

“There is accumulation of bodies, more than is removed on a daily basis,” the hospital said in a Facebook post.

Mr Naipo said bodies might have been left because of economic difficulties felt by many across the country.

“Do not blame Port Moresby General Hospital management and its board for this situation crisis,” he wrote on Facebook.

Dadi Toka Jr., the deputy governor of the city, told the Guardian that the administration was looking into ideas to enlarge the public hospital but that it needed a new mortuary facility.

Mass graves have been interred there before. To reduce pressure on the overburdened mortuary during the Covid-19 outbreak, more than 200 dead were interred.

And in December 2021, a mass grave also contained 54 unclaimed dead that had passed away from causes unrelated to Covid.

According to Unicef, the most populated Pacific Island country, Papua New Guinea, has recently seen outbreaks of a number of infectious diseases, including polio and HIV.

According to Unicef, the infant mortality rate in the country is now 44 per 1,000 children.

When compared to the UK, where the infant mortality rate is 4.2 per 1000 deaths, this mortality rate is more than 10 times higher.

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