SOME AIDS victims were being buried alive in Papua New Guinea by relatives who could look after them and fear becoming infected themselves, a health worker said today.

Margaret Marabe, who spent five months carrying out an AIDS awareness campaign in the remote Southern Highlands of the South Pacific nation, said she had seen five people buried alive.

One was calling out "Mama, Mama'' as the soil was shovelled over his head, said Ms Marabe, who works for a volunteer organisation called Igat Hope, Pidgin English for I've Got Hope.

"One of them was my cousin, who was buried alive,'' she said.