Bangladesh: dead-body management for Islamic welfare group

10 May 2012

Bangladesh: training in dead-body management for Islamic welfare organization

Dhaka (ICRC) – Thirty staff of Anjuman Mufidul Islam, an Islamic social-welfare organization in Bangladesh, are participating today in a training course on dead-body management organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The event was inaugurated by the director of Anjuman, Kazi Abul Kashem, in the presence of its president, Shamsul Haque Chisti, and of the deputy head of the ICRC delegation, Frederic E. Dufour.

Anjuman is well known for the burial assistance service it has been providing for more than a century. The organization's drivers and carriers collect unclaimed bodies from the police, local people and hospital morgues, and bury the deceased after cleaning. Anjuman's director, Mr Kashem, believes that the training provided by the ICRC will help the organization's staff to better perform these tasks. He hopes that the ICRC will continue to provide support in the future.

"We believe that because it is the right of every family to know the fate of their relatives, the identification of dead bodies is vitally important," said Shirin Sultana, an ICRC tracing field officer. "From a religious and cultural point of view, proper collection and dignified management of the bodies helps families of the victims to conduct their rituals of mourning."

Since 2010, the ICRC has been training Bangladesh Red Crescent Society volunteers in dead-body management and providing necessary supplies such as body bags. In March this year, after the ferry accident in Munshiganj, the Bangladesh Red Crescent took part in the collection of 25 bodies. It placed them in body bags and helped relatives with identification procedures and transportation.

For further information, please visit our website: www.icrc.org

ENDS

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