Dubai: A 27-year old Filipina maid's corpse has been unclaimed for almost three months after her death, due to insufficient funds to send it home, and officials say the wait may not be over.

Noraida Ayunan, from Mindanao, allegedly committed suicide on February 6 by falling from a building in Sharjah, where her employers had been staying during a business trip to the UAE. Her body has since been in a morgue in Sharjah, awaiting repatriation.

Vanjo Andig, a community leader among Filipino-Muslims in the UAE, told Gulf News he and others had been trying to get Noraida's body sent to the Philippines for months.

"She was a Muslim and she is supposed to buried within 24 hours, but this has been [almost three] months," he said.

Her uncle, Brian Maricor, told Gulf News via a telephone interview from Manila that the family was upset about the long wait they have had to endure to lay Noraida to rest.

"Her mother said 'I want to see my daughter. I don't care if she's dead, I just want to see her one last time. She is crying every day, hoping the body will come the next day. They are very poor - they can only afford to eat rice once a day and they have eight other children, all still very small - and they can't afford to pay to ship her body back."

The parents could not be contacted immediately as they do not have a telephone. Maricor added the family did not understand the reasons for the delay.

Conegundo Fernandez, Assistance to Nationals officer at the Philippine Consulate-General, said the consulate only received the funds to repatriate the body from the sponsor on Sunday.

He also said the Dh6,000 the sponsor gave was unlikely to be enough to cover the costs of shipping the body all the way to Mindanao, which may delay the repatriation process even further.

He said if the funds were not enough, the consulate would have to contact the sponsor again for more funds.
Failing that, they would have to seek funds from the Philippine government.