Tucson – The morgue in Arizona’s Pima County, right along the border with Mexico, will receive a new cadaver storage unit that will begin operation in September, an expansion due in part to the need for more space to house the bodies of would-be immigrants who perish in the desert.
Last year the county Medical Examiner’s Office found itself forced to rent, and later buy, a mobile refrigeration unit in which to store the remains.
Dr. Bruce O. Parks, Pima County’s chief medical examiner, said that the new unit will cost $240,000 and have the capacity to store between 110 and 120 bodies.
“The great majority of the undocumented people who die in the desert don’t have any papers at all that can prove their identity … or (tell) where they live. It’s an arduous task that can take months,” he told EFE.
He added that the mobile refrigeration unit was difficult to use and took up a lot of space, and so it was not the best solution for storing the corpses, which could remain there for months before being identified.
Parks explained that the advanced state of decomposition of the bodies often made their identification even more difficult, and so forensic authorities work hard with Mexican consulates to accelerate the process.
At present, the Pima County morgue still retains about 100 bodies of undocumented immigrants who have not been able to be identified.
“Sometimes the immigrants can be identified by marks on their bodies, tattoos or perhaps the clothing they were wearing,” said the chief medical examiner.
Parks calculates that autopsies, documentation and the storage of the bodies of undocumented immigrants cost his office about $100,000 per year.
Despite the fact that the number of undocumented people who have died in the desert has declined in the Border Patrol’s Tucson sector, the Medical Examiner’s Office plans to keep the mobile refrigeration unit, which cost $60,000, just in case an emergency arises.
During the Border Patrol’s current fiscal year – which began on Oct. 1, 2005 – the deaths of 124 undocumented immigrants have been registered, down from 177 during the same period last year.
One of the most recent deaths was that of an 11-year-old Mexican girl who died on the weekend when she was abandoned in the desert – along with her 17-year-old sister – by the people smuggler who was supposed to bring them to the United States.
Olivia Luna Nogueda and big sister Marisol left their native Acapulco to cross the border in the hope of being reunited with their parents, who work in Atlanta.
“The little girl died from the high temperatures, from lack of liquids,” said Parks, whose office was tasked with performing her autopsy.
