War in Afghanistan: A job no one wants
He buries those left behind: orphans, homeless, suicide bombers
Khwaja Naqib Ahmad, right, gets help on this day from Ghulam Sarwar at the graveyard where unclaimed dead and suicide bombers are buried outside of Kabul, Afghanistan. Ahmad’s job exacts an emotional as well as a physical toll. (CHRISTOPH BANGERT | THE NEW YORK TIMES)
By Azam Ahmed
THE NEW YORK TIMES Sunday August 4, 2013 9:22 AM
KABUL, Afghanistan — In a city with no shortage of hard jobs, Khwaja Naqib Ahmad lays claim to one of the toughest of all — burying the unclaimed dead.
Interred in his graveyard are orphans, homeless people and other nameless victims, who are sent off with a prayer and a tablet-shaped headstone. But increasingly the bodies that turn up here belong to another class of the unwanted: suicide bombers.
Ahmad has been a municipal government courier for the past five years, responsible for shuttling bodies between the morgue and his sloped and barren plot of rocky soil on the eastern edge of Kabul. It has been a period marked by a steady stream of suicide attacks, which were virtually unheard of in 2001, when the war began.
The work has grown harder for Ahmad, exacting as much of an emotional toll as a physical one. He says virtually nothing of his work to strangers, seeking comfort in the Quran. The scent of decomposed flesh lingers on his clothes. In winter, when the roads are impassable, he hoists the corpses on his shoulders and carries them.
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/national_world/2013/08/04/a-job-no-one-wants.html