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“Every morning we wake up, drink our coffee and come here to dig graves in the dark and cold. We feel a knot in our neck, you see it on everyone’s face.”
This image is described by the workers of the Thermi cemetery in Thessaloniki, who face the pandemic at its worst, that of the death of people who fought against the disease and failed to defeat it.
According to the workers, their work was already difficult, but now, with the coronavirus outbreak and its dozens of victims, the situation is desperate. “We are afraid for ourselves and our families. We are in constant contact with the coffins.”
They themselves wear a mask and special uniforms, however fear does not leave their daily life. Even more difficult is the work and the painful reality that the relatives of the lost live, who do not have the opportunity to see their loved ones for the last time before saying goodbye.
Many of them, due to their pain, can fight with the cemetery workers. “If a mother has lost her son and yells at you why they went to the memorial because we excavated next to him, you just bow your head,” says a worker as a woman stands on the grave of a loved one who died of coronavirus and cries . silently.
The place where the Covid-19 dead are buried is far from the other graves, while according to the employees, the coronavirus graves are ten years old and not three, as is usual in the others. The reason is because the dead Covid-19 is in a bag in the coffin, which is wrapped in several layers of film, so decomposition takes much longer to complete.
And as they point out, maybe ten years is not even enough, so sealed that the coffins are. About 50% of the graves every day in cemeteries are cases of coronavirus. According to thesstoday.gr, on Wednesday 12/09 the funerals that took place were 20 and 10 were for Covid-19 patients.
At the same time, workers note that many people die for reasons unrelated to the coronavirus during this time, as they were afraid to go to the hospital and check their health. Unprecedented health conditions have forced landfills to work longer hours, even on weekends.
“Instead of being with our wife and children, we are here, overtime.” They complain that the government has not supported them financially with extra money or a gift, although their work is extremely difficult.
At the same time, many of the employees had eight-month contracts that they do not know if they will be renewed, so they work in a state of uncertainty, at a time when the health situation is deteriorating and dozens of coronaviruses are dead. “In 20 days our contracts expire and others will come who do not know the job and it will take two months to learn it.”
