At one time during the height of the pandemic, Sandra Clark’s Oak Cliff funeral home looked more like a mortuary than a place to pay final respects. She had scores of bodies of coronavirus victims stored, victims of COVID-19 and government decisions to close borders. Now she is on the verge of winning a fight to return the deceased to their homeland.
Much of the Sandra Clark Funeral home’s business comes from Nigerian and Ethiopian nationals. Both countries declined to take bodies of coronavirus victims.
Clark had around 80 bodies at her small business.
“In the Nigerian community, the ones that died of COVID 19, they were not letting them back into the country,” she said. “I think the longest I kept them was eight months before I could get the approval for the body to go back to Nigeria.”
Burial in the homeland is important to natives of both countries, Clark said. But with the coronavirus claiming victims, and the countries refusing to allow their return, Clark had to take extraordinary measrues.
“I had to order, like maybe, eight extra tables. I had to turnma manager’s office into a storage room. I had to order three additional coolers just to store these people who passed away just to help my clients.”
Nigeria has started to reopen, allowing bodies to be flown only to the city of Lagos. She has reduced the backlog to 15 bodies.
Ethiopia, on the other hand, has not changed its guidelines.
“The embassy in Washington would not approve them to go back if they are a COVID case. So, what they’ve been doing is, for the ones who really want to go back, they have been storing their bodies in a mausoleum. So, maybe in a couple years, when it’s approve, we can disinter the body and send it back.”
Although it has been a trying time for the staff, Clark says none of her employees contracted the coronavirus.