Four family vaults in a disused cemetery in Alhos Vedros, Moita, were broken into last weekend, with skeletons tossed out of coffins and left in disarray.
Ten skeletons have now been sent to the Institute of Legal Medicine, in Lisbon, in order to be identified, and returned to the correct vaults.
Understanding is that this will have been a ‘raid’ on valuables that used to be placed in vaults by family members honouring their loved ones.
This is a cemetery that hasn’t been ‘used’ since the 1980s, albeit it allows visitors.
Local priest, Father Nuno Pacheco, has described the incident as “macabre”, adding that residents of the town are “traumatised”.
Cardinal D. Américo Aguiar was equally revolted. In a note showing that he visited the site, the cardinal wrote that “an act of this gravity strikes at the intrinsic dignity of the human person, wounds the memory of those who have passed away, and causes added suffering to their families”.
The cardinal told Rádio Renascença: “Vaults broken into, coffins torn open and broken, dismembered corpses… I had never seen anything like it, not even in horror films, nor had I ever imagined seeing such a scene, which caused me deep consternation for those deceased brothers who lay there, for their families, for the community. It is something for which none of us is prepared, to be faced with such a Dantesque scene as this…”
Various authorities – GNR, the municipal council of Moita, Civil Protection – have been involved in the dismal clear-up and repair operation, and it is now a question of time, to see if any clues come as to who may have been behind this vandalism.
Sources: Correio da Manhã/ SIC
