VietNamNet Bridge - All the infants buried in the Pleiku pediatric cemetery in the central highland province of Gia Lai share the fate as abandoned babies. Many of them were discovered when they got dried or part of their bodies were removed by ants or animals.

Thousands of graves just have several words naming the sponsor for this resting place. The rare names like Trung Thu (full moon festival), Noel or Christmas are engraved to remember the days the babies lost the right to live.

In 1992, Father Nguyen Van Dong (Thang Thien Church, Pleiku City) established this cemetery as the resting place for discarded baby. Because of poor health, Dong transferred the cemetery to a group of three benefactors, including Mr. Phung, Mr. Le and Mr. Tam. These people have taken care of the cemetery for 11 years. With the common love for the little creatures, these people pick up the bodies of abandoned babies to burry here, using their own money.

Phung and Le are grave builders at the Pleiku city cemetery. Phung came to this job by chance. "Once I found a carton box on a tomb in the city cemetery. Upon opening the box, I was cold after finding fetuses so I buried them," Phung recalled.

Since then, whenever he went to the cemetery, Phung was interesting in finding abandoned infants to burry. He also toured the hospitals and maternity homes to collect unclaimed fetuses to bury.

Of the more than 15,000 infants buried in this special cemetery, many were found incomplete since part of their bodies were eaten by ants or animals.

The number of infants is increasing. Some days, they found up to 22 dead infants and fetuses.

The cost of materials to build a tomb has increased from about VND50,000 ($2.5) to VND300,000 ($15) so the total funding for the cemetery is up to several million dong a day. Phung and Le cannot cover the entire cost so they receive assistance from donors.

According to them, students and prostitutes commit most of the abortion cases. In the past 11 years, they experienced a lot of ironies. Phung knew a lottery ticket vendor who was pregnant three times and had an abortion twice. In the third time, Phung advised her to keep the baby, with his financial assistance. However, after birth delivery, the woman left the baby for Phung. The man had to take the child to a pagoda.

Phung and Le also rescued nine babies from abortion. They took care of the pregnant women until they gave birth. "They were single mums so they just thought of abortion. I had to encourage them a lot to keep the babies," said Phung.

The babies are brought up by temples and some of them have been adopted. All of them see Phung as their adoptive father.

The people like Phung, Le, Tam and father Dong are wonderful. However, if the young live more consciously to themselves and the society to avoid unfortunate consequences for the little creatures.

P. Lan