BAGHDAD, 15 December (IRIN) - Lack of space and a shortage of doctors to deal with corpses at Baghdad's only mortuary is causing a delay in the release of bodies for burial.

"Insecurity in the country has affected our work and has caused a delay in the delivery of corpses to their families. A small number of staff and equipment has made things worse," said director of the Forensic Medicine Institute (FMI) in the Ministry of Health, Dr Fa'aq Ameen.

According to Ameen, families cannot receive bodies before they are examined and a post mortum is carried out which takes at least 2-3 days, but this goes against the need for Muslims to bury their loved ones within 24 hours as stipulated in Islam.

"We receive over 1,600 corpses on a monthly basis and the huge number of bodies has resulted in a lack of space for them," Ameen continued.

The doctor complained that 90 percent of the bodies that reached the mortuary every day were from terrorist attacks and that staff could not cope with the numbers.

"Our capacity for saving corpses is up to 120. In emergency cases like explosions corpses have to be kept in hospital refrigerators until there is a free space," he said.

Ameen warned of the possibility of disease if bodies remained without refrigeration for a long time.

The anxious and traumatic wait is also devastating for families. "This is my third visit to the mortuary this month. I have already lost two of my sons who were Iraqi National Guards (ING) at a check point attacked in southern Baghdad," said Salem Ali, standing at the mortuary door weeping.

"We brought my brother to the morgue after he suffered a heart attack in a hospital north of Baghdad and today is the second day that I am waiting for his body," Jassim Kalaf lamented.

Unclaimed corpses cause further problems. "We were saving unknown corpses for at least two months until their families were able to come and identify them during Saddam Hussein's regime but this procedure has changed now because there is not enough space for them," Ameen noted.

"Now when we receive large numbers of unknown corpses with no family claim, we bury them within five days in the general cemetery with some descriptions about marks, age and cause of death in case of a relative's claim," he continued.