TimesLIVE multimedia reporter Boikhutso Ntsoko spent an evening at Hillbrow mortuary in Johannesburg, where staff collect as many as 14 bodies in a day.
This is their story. Watch.
The mortuary is South Africa's busiest. In 2015 alone, it collected more than 3000 bodies.
Death is the ultimate equaliser, says Lindiwe Sebogodi, a mortuary officer based in Hillbrow.
"Reeva [Steenkamp], Brenda [Fassie], Chris Hani and Brett Kebble. I have collected them all. The rich, the famous, the poor and not so famous. Maybe even you one day," says Sebogodi.
"Once you are here you are all the same to us. That's what death does."
In the 2014-2015 financial year, South Africa's mortuary officials collected more than 18000 murder victims.
That number doesn't include the thousands of road-accident victims, suicides, accidental deaths or dumped foetuses, or those who die from unknown causes.
Times reporter Graeme Hosken and photographer Alon Skuy spent the graveyard shift with the men and women who collect South Africa’s dead. Read their account here.
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