Reporter: Mehrullah Mehrdad

Kabul-Afghanistan (PMG):

Abdul Wahab, a man who has been in charge of a cold store in the Pul-e-Khumri Provincial Hospital for twenty years, says he sometimes sleeps in the Pul-e-Khumri Provincial Hospital’s cold house where the bodies are kept. Sleeping with the dead bodies may be a difficult task for others, but how Abdul Wahab spends the night in the dark with the corpses in the morning sun.

“Although sleeping next to the dead is not without fear, I have no fear of sleeping in a room with the dead bodies.”

He says he even bathes where the bodies are washed.

The head of the hospital’s morgue says sleeping with his corpses has become commonplace and he has no fear of doing so.

He says the most prolific day was a few months ago when about thirty bodies of security forces were transferred to the Pul-e-Khumri Provincial Hospital’s refrigerator.

Meanwhile, Mohammad Anwar Wardak, head of the Pul-e-Khumri Provincial Hospital, told a correspondent in the northeast zone that 120 corpses had been transferred from the hospital to the morgue this year.

Mr. Wardak also adds that the majority of the bodies transported to the morgue are security forces and civilians killed in wars or traffic accidents.

The Pul-e-Khumri Provincial Hospital has 12 refrigerators for body storage.