Controversy has once again been whipped up over ‘decomposition issues’ at Faro’s new cemetery.
In one short stark sentence: the soil at the cemetery mummifies bodies, instead of allowing them to decompose.
As funeral director Paulo Vieira told reporters earlier this year, “the soil is no good for burials” – which has left Faro council with a major headache: what is to be done with the 2000 mummified bodies which lie in graves there, bearing in mind space now is at a premium?
Options under study include the construction of hundreds of further ‘gavetões’ (literally, drawers in which remains are stored in cemetery walls), and incineration.
But the PSD council is clearly upset that PS Socialist opposition members have raised questions so close to All Saints Day on November 1 (known here as the Day of the Dead).
A source has told tabloid Correio da Manhã that it shows “a lack of respect”, and is “politicising people’s memories of lost loved ones”.
The problem has not been helped by the impasse over the construction of a much-needed crematorium.
This has been ‘on the cards’ for years, but the company that initially won the tender to build it has now stymied the process through the courts.
For now, it appears the mummified bodies will slowly be either transferred to ‘gavetões’ as these become available, or eventually incinerated on a ‘case-by-case’ basis, to be agreed with the relevant families.
