Crypt Cleaners in Guatemala

Armed only with a sledgehammer and mask to cover his mouth and nose, a Guatemalan grave-cleaner begins the wretched task of smashing open a crypt and removing whatever rank remains lurk inside. A human skull with thick hair still clinging to it is pulled from one of the dark tombs, a miniature baby coffin, adorned with a white flower, from another. The men are removing the dead whose families can no longer afford the luxury of a private crypt and as soon as a lease on a grave expires, the cleaners will come and free up the space for a new paying customer.

Any remains that are not claimed will be stuffed into plastic bags, labelled and sent to a mass grave to be reburied. Most of the corpses excavated are largely decomposed, but those that were laid to rest in the upper crypts, where conditions are hot and dry, become mummified. Bags of broken corpses are tossed into heaps like piles of garbage and transported on forklift trucks with the clothes they were buried in still on their backs. Remains that are claimed by family members are stored in a small box and then deposited at an ossuary at the General Cemetery.

Via the Daily Mail