Dear Editor,
The Le Repentir cemetery, once used to be kept like a well-groomed park, is today completely reduced to a chamber of horrors. Thousands of tons of rubbish are dumped on the roads, and huge trees and bushes have overtaken the burial areas.
The burying areas are always flooded. To get to the areas where the dead are to be buried, the bereaved family has to pay to clear the road so that the hearse could get to the grave, and very often coffins have to be placed in flooded graves.
Recently, for example, at a Catholic nun’s burial, her sister nuns had to raise much over $100,000 to pay for the cleaning of the road to allow the hearse and mourners to get to the grave.
A standing danger to visitors and mourners is the regular attacks from bandits, who hide in the high grass and bushes and then pounce down upon mourners. The gravediggers and tomb masons are in collusion with the bandits, and signal them when to attack. Other bandits move around on bicycles.
The City Council and the Local Government Ministry need to immediately have a strong Police presence at the cemetery, and this should be done as early as tomorrow.
Then the cemetery must be restored and maintained, and a system of rangers should be employed to oversee the cemetery. The cemetery is a disgrace to the governmental bodies responsible for maintaining it, and the religious bodies, the NGO’s and the media should pressure these bodies to do their work.
Yours sincerely,
Paul Validum
Ramlochan
