VietNamNet Bridge – Less than 20km from Hanoi’s center is a cemetery, where around 50,000 unfortunate newborn babies rest in peace.
Doi Coc, in Soc Son district, used to be a normal, small cemetery. Since 2007,
some local people contributed their land to expand the cemetery, to bury
abandoned newborn babies.
Mr. Nguyen Van Thao, a local man, said that tens of years ago, some
 local people saw dead newborn babies on roadsides, on dustbins, etc.
They brought them to this cemetery for burial.
Local residents always hoard up earthenware containers to use to
bury dead newborn babies. They purchase these items by themselves.
Every morning, some local people go to dumping grounds or clinics
to collect dead newborn babies. Corpses are gathered at a waiting
house for being buried in late afternoon. “They do this charity job
voluntarily, by their own money,” Mr. Nguyen Van An, chief of Doi Coc village said.
There are many earthenware containers and pots in this house.
The containers for bigger and the pots are for smaller babies.
 “We are very pained seeing decayed bodies of newborn babies.
 We bury them by our own hands. We only wish to give them
a place for peaceful rest,” said Mr. Thao, a local man.
“We cover them by white cloths and put them into these pots.
After that we cover the pots by cement. We will bury them into the same tomb,” Thao added.
This tomb is for a round ten newborn babies who were dead at birth.
 They were named by their parents, such as Anna Tieu Duyen,
Nguyen Minh Quan, Nguyen Hoang Ha, etc. The remaining thousands
 of babies are unnamed. Most of them were aborted.
This cemetery receives at least 20 newborn babies a day, even
50 in some days. “There are many industrial zones in this region.
Perhaps some female workers make mistake and have an abortion,”
 said Ms. Nguyen Thi Tho of Doi Coc village.
There are 24 tombs which have been completely built. Each tomb
consists of around 600 babies.  There are tens of half-done tombs.
These graves are very deep. Each of them can contain around 50
 earthenware containers. There are several babies in each container.
Containers are piled up to save room. Mr. Thao said that up to
50,000 babies were buried here.





Doi Coc cemetery is located near a field. Only several people who know
 about it pay visits to this cemetery, some times to burn incenses for
unfortunate babies and to note thank-you to people who quietly do this charity job.


VNE