The Director of the Metro Public Health Department of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), Mr Simpson Anim Boateng, has called on city authorities to relocate the Awudome Cemetery.
“The old one is completely full and even pathways now serve as burial grounds, which is not good,” he said, pointing to a grave.
He said whilst efforts were going on to find a new site, efforts must be made to use the old cemetery just across the road as an interim measure .
“This old one has not been in use for the past 10 years and by now, the bodies have decomposed. We can use it for the time being as we await a new location from the authorities,” he said.
Mr Boateng was responding to a question about space in the cemetery which has for decades been used as a final resting place for the dead in the Accra metropolis.
The cemetery, constructed around the 1800s, has been overstretched and exhausted far beyond its limit, leaving sextons with no alternative but to bury dead bodies between two graves.
City authorities are now saddled with the responsibility of locating another land to replace the over a century-old cemetery.
Early morning rains in some parts of Accra last Friday exposed some bodies that had been buried in a mass pit at the cemetery a week earlier.
This resulted in an overpowering stench which engulfed the vicinity of the cemetery; a situation which caused discomfort to residents and motorists who used the cemetery road.
Later in the day, the sextons and the city authorities took measures to cover the mass grave and used disinfectants to spray the area in order to reduce the awful smell.
Explaining why the bodies were exposed, Mr Boateng said the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital and the Police Hospital had buried about 200 unclaimed bodies at the cemetery a week before the incident.
He said the cemetery officials caused an excavator to dig a 25-feet pit for the bodies to be buried.
Unfortunately, Mr Boateng explained, the vehicle that conveyed the dead bodies dumped them on one side instead of spreading them in the pit.
“When this happens, we have no option but to cover the side that the bodies have gathered mostly because we fear that anyone directed to go and arrange the bodies in the pit, might not come out alive,” he added.
For that reason, Mr Boateng said, the early morning rains washed part of the soil away, causing some of the bodies to be exposed.
He was, however, quick to add that officials at the cemetery covered the pit to ensure the safety of inhabitants in the area.
He, therefore, called on city authorities, as part of a temporary measure, to relocate the cemetery to the old one until a new land is finally acquired to relocate the cemetery.
By Zainabu Issah/Daily Graphic/Ghana
