Dealing with the dead: the female undertakers of Harlem


  • World
  • Tuesday, 21 Apr 2020

Alisha Narvaez, 36, the manager and Nicole Warring, 33, a Resident Funeral Director at International Funeral & Cremation Services, a funeral home in Harlem, carry a deceased person into the basement area, where bodies are stored and prepared for funeral services, during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Manhattan, New York City, New York, U.S., April 2, 2020. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

NEW YORK (Reuters) - There are 48 bodies in the basement of the funeral home in Harlem. Forty are in cardboard boxes, ready for cremation. The other eight are in the refrigerator, to be embalmed and buried. It will be weeks or months before they get either.

As health officials began burying COVID-19 victims in a mass grave on Hart Island during New York's worst week of death, the four female undertakers at the International Funeral & Cremation Service started turning bodies away.

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