Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. Bulawayo City Council is set to take over the privately-owned Umvutcha Cemetery with an estimated 45 000-grave capacity to ease a shortage of burial space.
Bulawayo has been experiencing a burial space shortage following the decommissioning of West Park, Luveve, Athlone and Hyde Park cemeteries.
At present, the local authority is operating three cemeteries, Athlone West, Luveve Extension and Lady Stanley (the latter is reserved for senior prominent citizens).
To ease the shortage of burial space, the council had granted authority to AP Glendanning to operate Umvutcha cemetery, the latest council report of the health, housing and education committee reveals.
This comes after the cemetery’s proprietors had approached the council seeking to turn it into residential stands.
The cemetery has also been deemed unattractive to residents because of its location and residents have also complained that the cemetery did not offer grave refilling services which was another inconvenience for mourners.
Council is mulling introducing mandatory cremation for children under the age of 12 as the city is running out of burial space but some councillors feel all persons under 25 years should be incinerated.
The local authority has been trying to encourage residents to embrace cremation to save the available burial space but there have been few takers.
