"Work That Is Not Spoken Aloud": Damira Naimanova Works Where Others Fear to Go — The Story of a Morgue Employee

Damira Naimanova, a 50-year-old resident of Osh, has been working as a junior staff member in the thantology department of the Osh regional bureau of forensic medical examinations for the past 12 years. In her profession, she faces human death every day, which makes her job extremely challenging. She shared this in an interview with a Turmush correspondent.
Every day, Damira processes the bodies of people who died in traffic accidents, were murdered, or who died by suicide or under mysterious circumstances. Her duties include receiving the bodies, hygienic processing, washing, stitching, and dressing them in shrouds, as well as placing the bodies in the refrigerator — she performs almost all of these tasks alone.
Damira was born in 1976 in the village of Japalak near Osh. She is married and raises two children — a son and a daughter. In her youth, she dreamed of moving to Russia, but when her children started school, she had to stay: “Children need constant attention — they need to be picked up from school and monitored for their lessons. So I stayed, and a friend offered me a job here,” she shares.
Initially, Damira worked as a cleaner in the department, but soon began to participate in the main processes. “I cleaned the offices, and then I started asking, ‘Is it free?’ Eventually, I began to help — it became a regular job for me. People sometimes ask: ‘Aren't you scared?’ but I reply: ‘Why be afraid of the dead? It's better to be afraid of the living,’” she says.
The day Damira first worked independently with a body remains etched in her memory forever. “It was my first day when a boy who died in a car accident was brought to us. We performed the necessary procedures and handed him over to his relatives,” she recalls.
Damira emphasizes that many people have misconceptions about forensic examination. “When people hear ‘examination,’ they think it’s just the morgue. But forensic examination has many departments: laboratories, biology, chemistry, and histology. Each department has its own functions,” she explains.
According to her, after the body is delivered, all responsibility shifts to the sanitary workers and experts. “The police's job ends when they bring the body. We accept it, and the investigator records all the data,” notes Damira.
Sometimes even newborns who did not survive their first day come for examination. “There are cases when children who lived only two hours are brought in. The father files for examination, blaming the doctors for negligence,” she recounts.
Damira also highlights that in September 2025, the number of suicide cases among teenagers in her practice increased. “We brought in the bodies of children born between 2000 and 2012 who committed suicide, mostly children from 2009-2010. Sometimes two or three bodies were brought at once,” she shares.
When several people die in a traffic accident, all the bodies are brought in simultaneously. “This is considered a mass admission, and autopsies are performed on all of them. There are cases when the bodies are severely damaged, and we try to restore their appearance as much as possible,” says Damira.
Despite the difficult working conditions, Damira admits that she often cannot hide her emotions: “When you see crying relatives, you can’t hold back yourself. There are moments when I cry too,” she shares.
Damira explains that after death, blood accumulates on the side where the body lies, which helps experts determine the time of death. “There have been cases when a body was brought in after lying for a month, and only bones remained,” she says.
She also mentions that bodies are shown to relatives only with the investigator's permission: “We can only release a body based on identification documents and with the investigator's permission,” she adds.
It is especially hard when bodies remain without relatives for a long time. “If no one comes forward within a month, the body is buried at the expense of the mayor's office,” states Damira.
Despite all the difficulties, Damira's salary is quite low. “I earn about 16,000–17,000 soms. So I work part-time in cafes and restaurants to make ends meet,” she recounts.
In conclusion, Damira notes that young people are not eager to work in this field. “Now I have to perform all the duties alone. Students are afraid of such work, even when we offer them internships,” she concludes, continuing to face death and its consequences every day.