Turkey’s ritual corpse washers say faith overcame COVID fears

0

ISTANBUL, Feb 7 (Reuters) – Eda Elal has prepared corpses for burial in accordance with Islamic rituals for almost half her life, but says her work as a ‘ghassal’ in Turkey has never been more difficult than when bodies and illness overwhelmed her during the COVID -19 pandemic.

Elal, 36, said a sense of spiritual duty helped her continue to carry out the common end-of-life ritual despite exhaustion and fear, especially when she fell ill herself of COVID-19 last year.

According to the ritual, the ghassals pray while washing the body, before placing it in a white shroud before burial. The corpses arrive from hospitals or homes in a washing cabin, called “ghassilhane”, where men wash the male bodies and women wash the female bodies.

Join now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com

Register

“I have been ghassal for 16 years. I have never seen so many dead together. I have never washed so many corpses in one day. We were exhausted,” Elal said.

“Believe me, having COVID was harder than washing someone who died of COVID. Because you yourself are sick, you are fighting a life or death battle,” she said, adding that she had been in therapy for a while because she couldn’t go. outside, fearing re-infection.

Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city with some 16 million people, has 243 ghassals working in 16 wash booths run and funded by the municipal government, providing the service free of charge.

Elal said two ghassals normally wash five bodies each day, although there were as many as 40 during the worst days of the pandemic.

Turkey’s daily COVID-19 deaths peaked at nearly 400 in May last year, and are now hovering just below 200 even as cases hit record highs. Read more

Ceyhan Tunc, 45, another ghassal, said he was panicked when the pandemic started and debated how to continue his work while staying safe, but continued once new protective measures were adopted .

“It’s a matter of the heart,” said Tunc, who has worked for five years.

The ghassals are paid by the municipal government but Elal and Tunc said the demanding work is more of a liability than a source of income.

“We try to look at this not from the perspective of money and work, but rather from the perspective of a religious duty,” Elal said.

Elal says her father and husband did not support her 17-year-old decision to become a ghassal. But now the family is his greatest moral support.

“I have never regretted doing this work because preparing the corpse is the last service done to a person. My faith and my spirit are satisfied,” Elal said, adding that being with someone in “their last moment” compensated for the difficulties.

Join now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com

Register

Written by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Jonathan Spicer and Emelia Sithole-Matarise

Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Share.

Comments are closed.