Preparing war dead for burial is a religious calling

Preparing war dead for burial is a religious calling, Afghan man says
The Washington Post
By Kevin Sieff
Published: July 6, 2013

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — The man who spends his days surrounded by dead Afghan soldiers waits in a faded shipping container across from the morgue. But Noorulah Noori rarely waits long before he is called to work.

Inside the container is a bed, a fan and a hose for washing the bodies. He has prepared at least a thousand of them for burial over the past decade: victims of roadside bombs, gunshots, mortar rounds and disease, delivered to him in all the shapes death takes.

Noori, 33, removes the soldiers from identical wooden coffins that are draped in Afghanistan's flag, and he performs his duty, preparing each for burial in the Islamic tradition. He washes off blood and dirt, sprinkles perfume and covers each in a white sheet, or kafan. That's how their families will see them when they make it home.

What Noori sees first is much more bracing — a relentless procession of bodies just off the battlefield. He takes anti-anxiety medication to help him sleep. He doesn't tell his family anything about his job at one of the Afghan military's busiest medical centers, Kandahar Regional Military Hospital.
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