A group of Gozo parishioners has stepped in to organise a funeral for four people who died last year but whose bodies remained unclaimed after no relatives or friends came forward to organise their burial.

Raymond Balzan, Anthony Borg, Valerie Jean Austin and Albert Tanti may have never been members of Victoria’s parish of St George. But that matters little to the parishioners there, who have made it a point to organise a funeral for their unclaimed bodies and give them the dignified farewell they deserve, as if they were part of their community.

Every year, a small number of unclaimed bodies remain at the hospital, with no one coming forward to arrange for their burial. This year, there were four such individuals. If these bodies remain unclaimed for months despite repeated government notices, they are given a “pauper’s burial”.

Their passing was announced on the parish’s social media as if they lived and died within the community. Photo: Facebook / St George’s Basilica

But after months of discussions with the authorities, the parish managed to claim those bodies with the help of the health and active ageing ministry and the superintendent for public health.

As a result, a proper funeral – instead of a pauper’s burial – will be held for them this Wednesday.

The parish is extending the same courtesies to the four deceased people as to any other parishioner who lived and died within the community. Their passing was announced on the parish’s social media as if they were active members, and they will be afforded a funeral service in the parish church.

“We’re essentially adopting them as if they were our own relatives and organising a funeral like you would for a relative of yours – complete with flowers, memory cards (santi tal-mejtin), mourners and a burial in the parish graves,” parish priest Fr Joseph Curmi said.

“Our main intention is not to offer them a funeral however. The government already provides a coffin, a grave and a short service for unclaimed bodies. What we really want to offer them is a community – people who care about them, pray for them and treat them with dignity as if they were their own friends and family.”

The idea piqued interest among parishioners. Some have offered to carry the coffins and help set up the church for the funeral, others offered to pay for the flowers or cover other expenses, and the parish choir will sing during the mass.

The Caritas branch of the Gozo church has also pitched in and parish priests from other villages have joined Curmi and his team to help put it together.

The parish first announced its wish to take responsibility for unclaimed bodies in 2021, when it launched an initiative dubbed Fejn hu Ħuk (Where is your brother), urging the community to look out for those who have been sidelined in society.

Curmi said it took a few years to iron out some legal hurdles and this year the parish and the authorities got the confirmation that the gesture could be lawfully performed and repeated by any other parish in the years to come.

“There’s already a lot of interest from other parishes, which is extremely encouraging,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter that we don’t have a relationship with the people who die and remain unclaimed. What matters is that they are people – human beings who don’t deserve to be discarded – and as a society we should never accept a situation where people are discarded, even after they die.”

He explained that one of the corpses is already in Gozo while the other three are in Malta.

Those coffins will be transported to Gozo in three hearse vehicles on Wednesday afternoon to join the fourth coffin at the Gozo hospital.

All four vehicles will then make their way to St George’s Basilica for the funeral service, following which they will be buried in the parish graves at the Victoria cemetery.

The funeral will be broadcast live on the parish Facebook page.