From now on, no more deaths will be brought to the cemeteries of Kintambo, Kinsuka, Kimbanseke, Kinkole-Rva and Tshuenge. These burial sites, popular with the majority of destitute families in Kinshasa, are closed. Thus decided the provincial government of the capital of the DRC, in a correspondence of current July 9, addressed to the head of Urban Division of the Interior and Security
In his letter, Dolly Makambo, provincial minister of the interior, security, decentralization and customary affairs, said that this measure is a reminder of a previous instruction with actual application.
The former mayor of Gombe, elected deputy last December, notes with regret that despite the formal prohibition to bury the bodies in the cemeteries mentioned above, clandestine funerals are regularly performed there.
The Kintambo cemetery, for example, yet officially closed since 1998, continues to record secret burials which only third parties require formalities related thereto.
Also, the burial conditions of bodies in these necropolises, closed for lack of available space, leave something to be desired. The dead are sometimes piled on top of each other. What is worse, the graves are arranged anyhow. To access some, you have to climb others. These cemeteries are so saturated that visitors do not know how to make their way through the burials anymore.
Despite this state of affairs, these cemeteries continue to receive an average of 100 deaths each week. The gravediggers superimpose the "newcomers" on the "formers". The employees of the Town Hall committed to these cemeteries continue to collect burial taxes and do not report to the mayors of the concerned townships.
(CKS/Yes)