Coffins (like suitcases) also get lost at airports

Abdelkhaleq Hadiouabba was 77 years old when his wife and his niece-in-law, Laila Moussafir, decided to take him to the Terrassa hospital due to fainting. It was February 23, 2022. “I was wearing a few weeks with important dementias, he suddenly forgot things…” explains Moussafir. “We lived here in the Can Anglada neighborhood of Terrassa but he thought he was in Morocco”, he recalls. He was hospitalized for a month in the hospital, but he no longer came out alive.

Hadiouabba’s wife spent day and night at the foot of the hospital bed. Moussafir went to see him every day after work. “We can’t say anything bad about the hospital, they behaved very well with us and helped us with everything,” explains Moussafir. The man, born and raised in Casablanca (Morocco) died in the Catalan hospital on March 23 of a bronchial aspiration, as recorded on the death certificate. But for the family, the real ordeal began there.

The family paid 2,400 euros to pay for the repatriation of the body and comply with the will of the deceased to be buried in Casablanca (Morocco). In reality, the costs of this procedure rise to more than 5,000 euros, but the Islamic Community of Tarragonés took care of the rest, since the family had no more income and the consulate no longer helps financially in these cases. The Interfunerarias company collected the body and strictly complied with the rites dictated by Islamic tradition, including washing the body, before sending the body to Morocco. “We cannot say anything bad about the funeral home, they have behaved excellently with us and with indisputable professionalism,” says Moussafir.

The coffin was transferred in a cold room at El Prat airport on March 30. The company Rieco Exterior SL He was in charge of buying the flight from the Royal Air Marroc company, clearing customs and transferring the body to the airport warehouse of the Swuissport company. The family of the deceased, including his wife, were waiting in Morocco to continue with the funeral ritual and bury Hadiouabba that same afternoon. The body had to arrive in the African country on March 30 at 1:55 p.m.. But the surprise was capital. “When we went to collect the body they gave us the body of a woman named Zahara Bertich“exclaims Moussafir, still affected. “It’s a joke in bad taste, they treated my uncle like one more lump,” she laments.

The companies that participated in this transfer explain that the failure is the fault of the operators of Swisssport. “They made the wrong box and took one that didn’t fit, we did our job well,” they explain. The family does not know the whereabouts of the other deceased, who they discovered had to be transferred to another Moroccan city, Tangier. The failure to misplace coffins, according to these sources, is beginning to be “usual”. “Personnel turnover is constant, they are temporary and with very precarious salaries, and there are usually mistakes lately”specifies the manager of a company that has specialized in repatriating bodies abroad for 20 years.

Finally, the body of Abdelkhaleq Hadiouabba was transferred to Casablanca on March 31 and buried on April 1. But the family is still in ‘shock’. “What has happened to us is very serious and we want to file a lawsuit against those who may have caused us this terrible pain,” Moussafir complains. This newspaper has unsuccessfully tried to contact the company swisssportwhich manages the warehouse where, supposedly, the error was made.