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ΛέσβοςLesvos morgue too full due to lack of space to bury drowned refugees
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The Lesvos morgue has resorted to using a refrigerated container supplied by volunteers and a non-governmental organization in order to preserve the bodies of refugees drowned in their attempt to cross over from Turkey, island sources said on Friday.
They said a total of 67 bodies have accumulated in the Mytilene Hospital morgue because there is no room to bury them in the section of the town’s cemetery reserved for Muslim refugees drowned making the crossing.
The Lesvos municipality and other bodies on the island are now making efforts to expand a section of the town’s cemetery into a next-door plot of land to make room for the additional bodies. There are currently 80 refugees buried in the cemetery at the moment, the majority of them Muslims, while many are still unidentified, with grave markers bearing only the inscription ‘Afghan’ or ‘Unknown’ and a number and burial date.
Unlike the Christian faith, the Muslim faith does not allow bodies to be exhumed to make space for new ones, while other unidentified bodies are kept indefinitely because the number and burial date correspond to DNA samples taken in case relatives come seeking lost family members.
The plot of land on which the cemetery is to be expanded is owned by a trust handling the property of Mytilene Hospital but this means that there are numerous complex bureaucratic processes that must be negotiated in order for the land to be used as a cemetery.
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