«J’étais choqué…» : trois localités n’ont pas le droit d’enterrer leurs morts au cimetière de Grand-Mbao
Since last year, the Grand-Mbao cemetery is no longer open to all the deceased. Three of the ten or so localities in the Mbao commune are no longer allowed to bury their dead there. These are Zac-Mbao, Keur Mbaye Fall, and Tolu Diaz.
And for good reason. The cemetery, established in 1985, was beginning to reach capacity. "The pace was such that if we had let it continue, there would no longer be space to bury our own dead. We decided to put a stop to it," explains Massamba Seck, a member of the collective in charge of managing the site, interviewed by L'Observateur, which covered the subject in its Monday edition.
Ousmane Diop and Cheikh Diaw learned this the hard way. The former lives in Keur Mbaye Fall, and the latter is the deputy mayor of Grand-Mbao. “My grandson was twelve years old,” Diop recounts. “He died in a road accident. Since we live in Keur Mbaye Fall and we usually bury our dead in the Grand-Mbao cemetery, we decided to bury him there. Just as we were about to head to the cemetery, I was told that people who didn't live in the village were no longer buried there. Surprised, I didn't hesitate for a moment to call the village chief. He confirmed the information and told me that no special treatment would be given. It was a real shock. In the end, we buried my late grandson in the Tolu Diaz cemetery.”
Diaw witnessed the same situation. He shared his story on Facebook. A neighbor's mother needed to be buried. "I was part of the funeral procession. We had left Keur Mbaye Fall to go to the Grand-Mbao cemetery. We were very surprised when the attendant informed us that we couldn't bury our deceased there. I was shocked, and the irony is that the deceased's husband is buried there."
However, the deputy mayor chimed in, "when the cemetery wall collapsed, we all contributed financially to its reconstruction. Some of my uncles and many friends are buried there, so I cannot understand why residents of the same town are not buried in this place of eternal rest."
The mayor of Mbao, Abdou Karim Sall, tried to find a solution. But the series of meetings he initiated to this end came to nothing, reports L'Observateur. Finally, the newspaper continues, the case landed at the Industrial Free Zone (ZFI) brigade, but the gendarmes went no further than forwarding the report of the hearings to higher authorities. "The prefect visited the site to see for himself. Then, nothing more," the Future Media Group daily reports.
Pastef MP Babacar Ndiaye, quoted by L'Observateur, calls on the State to "take responsibility". "Despite having proper burial permits, the people of Keur Mbaye Fall are no longer able to bury their dead in the Grand-Mbao cemeteries," the parliamentarian denounces.
Members of the collective in charge of cemetery management remain inflexible. Massamba Seck points out that the residents of Keur Mbaye Fall and Zac Mbao have burial plots, but these are not secure. This explains why the people of these localities opt for the Grand-Mbao cemetery. "They simply have to ensure the security of their graves, as we do in Grand-Mbao, where we hired a guard paid 75,000 CFA francs a month without any assistance from the town hall," argues Massamba Seck.
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