By Hassan Juana Koroma in Bo
In 2009 Kaifala Kamara lost two of his relatives in a tragic road accident; and because the family didn't have enough money to provide a standard grave, they just did a simple one.
When in 2018 they were ready to provide a standard grave, the Kamara family found another grave on the site where their loved ones where buried. The ensuing confusion led to police intervention as the Kamara’s insisted on an explanation from the Bo City Council.
That incident illustrates a major crisis ongoing in Bo, where shortage of space at the CKC Cemetery, the only burial ground in the city of over 170, 000 people, is forcing grave diggers to implement unconventional means to accommodate the dead, much to the disgust of relatives.
Bo, located in the Southern Province of Sierra Leone, is the second most populous district in the country. Bo City, its capital, is the second largest city in the country after Freetown.
According to the 2015 Population and Housing Census, the district has a population of 575,478 people, the city accounts for 174,369 of that.
The CKC Cemetery has been in existence for over 75 years. Residents say they realized that the cemetery has been full since 2015, when grave diggers began digging shallow graves.
Burial permit costs between Le50, 000 and Le100, 000, depending on the nature of the grave, which is often determined by the faith of the individual. Christians who often require larger space to erect thumbs, pay Le100, 000, while Muslims who prefer the simple grave pay Le50, 000.
With all this, the people say, the state of the cemetery is less than satisfactory. They say it’s always so bushy that it’s tough to identify the grave of one’s loved ones. But the most vexing concern is the congestion. There are reports of gravediggers depositing bodies in twos. They do so by digging four feet instead of the normal six feet.
Augustine Blake, who is in charge of the CKC Cemetery, said for as far as he could remember throughout the 25 years he has been working at the cemetery, his employer, the Bo City Council, has received a lot of complaints over the sad state of the cemetery. He said throughout this period there has been no improvement on the facility in terms of maintenance, noting that the issue of congestion has been on for the last 10 years.
The elderly cemetery manager and his team of seven workers receive on average four corpses a day. He said because of lack of space, they have had to recycle graves. This also means that they have had to cut down on the depth they dig from six feet to four feet, to avoid digging out human bones, he explained.
Pa Blake added that for far too long now the Bo City Council has not been providing them with the basic tools they use to do their job. And this, he said, could be the reason why they sometimes face “spiritual attacks” from the dead who he believes are angered by the lack of basic facilities in their resting place.
Blake also lamented the lack of motivation due to the unfavorable condition they work in, which he said has led to the downsizing of his team. Out of the seven men he works with, only three are on the Council’s payroll. Many have deserted and others are reluctant to join them.
“We work here in constant fear. Anywhere we dig we find decomposed body,” he told Politico.
Blake urged relatives of the dead to regularly visit and clean the graves of their loved ones.
Digging graves six feet is not just a matter of preserving the dignity of the deceased, it is also a matter of health security, said Fatmata G. Kamara, Senior Health and Environmental Superintendent at the Bo District Health Management Team. Citing the 1960 Public Health Ordinance, Kamara said there was a risk of contracting diseases such as tetanus, tuberculosis, Ebola, among several other chronic diseases, when bodies are buried in narrow graves. She said the acceptable practice for recycling of graves is after 10 years.
Ms Kamara also cautioned against grave diggers not using protective gears when dealing with dead bodies.
The Bo City Council management admitted to the concerns and said efforts were been made to address them, including plans to relocate the cemetery.
Edward Alpha, Chief Administrator of the Council, told Politico that they’d identified a space in Mattru in the Tikonko Chiefdom.
The management of the CKC cemetery is under the Bo Waste Management Department of the Council. The head of this department, Hinga Navo, said since 2017 they have been providing the workers with equipment like rain gears and other logistics, noting that their major challenge has been personnel. He however assured that by the end of 2019, there will have been a major facelift at the cemetery.
(c) 2019 Politico Online
