Forced to refuse to bury Muslims, there is no place

Underground, in the cold basement, the dead lie in their coffins waiting for their relatives to say goodbye. Between the three-story shelves along the walls, there is only one space available.

Several of the coffins here at the Malmö crematorium have been given a special symbol pasted on the short side. A blue circle with three white drops shows that the person died with confirmed covid-19.

– We haven’t had so many chests before. I have witnessed coffins being placed on the second shelf, but not the third. This is the first time I’ve seen him, says the chapel keeper Sabina.

The corona pandemic has affected regions of the country differently. During the first wave this spring, Stockholm, among other places, was badly hit by high death rates. Skåne escaped much more easily then.

But at the beginning of the year, during the second wave, the coffins begin to flow at such a rapid rate that the crematory staff, on the floor above the cold basement, are forced to work weekends and many overtime hours to wear. up to date. .

The number of funeral cases in January is 50 percent more compared to January last year, according to the administration of the cemetery in Malmö. The second wave of pandemic is claiming many lives, now also in Skåne.

In the room above the basement there are three large ovens. In one of them, a body burns at 800 degrees of heat. After twenty minutes, the coffin collapses.

After an hour, only the ashes of a lifetime remain.

Sometimes hip joints, knee joints, implants or screws are also left, if the deceased had them implanted in the body.

Next to one of the ovens, the crematorium technician Sebastián is trying to repair a cordon. He started working in April last year, in the midst of the crown crisis.

– It’s still high pressure. In principle, every weekend we have worked overtime to keep up. One month I had almost 40 overtime hours. Of course you get tired, but we will continue to operate as long as the ovens can handle, he says.

Because the dead lie in coffins, the staff never see the faces of the dead. Help employees keep their distance, according to Sebastian. But sometimes you see years in the coffins that remember the year of your parents’ birth. Then it comes closer.

On the street outside the crematorium in Limhamn, several white refrigerated containers are ready to be used to store even more deceased if the need arises. Several employees believe that there may also be a third wave pandemic in Skåne. At the same time, they say that business is ready.

At Östra kyrkogården in Malmö, the sun has begun to disperse the dense fog that covers the graves and the memorial grove. Unlike the rest of the cemetery, block number 30 is bare, without trees or shrubs. The Muslim Quarter is relatively new and vegetation has not yet begun to grow among all the tombstones. In the background rises a million home shows.

Gravediggers and other staff have had to work under great pressure at the cemetery since the second wave hit, according to cemetery teacher Anna Jeppsson.

– That the wave reached Malmö, we found out in mid-December. Then it blew up properly with many, many, many funerals. If we compare the period from mid-December to mid-February this year with the same period last year, there are almost twice as many funerals, he says.

Since the second pandemic, more than a hundred funerals have been held in this cemetery alone. A figure that Anna Jeppsson describes as “extremely high”, and that many other cemetery administrations would be “quite surprised”.

In one of the passages through Block 30 is grave manager Robin Nilsson, who, among other things, is dedicated to digging graves. Describe that your work situation has been under pressure. Like the crematory technicians, they have had to work weekends and overtime to keep up with the pressure. Although the situation right now is calmer.

– But right now the sports holidays are being celebrated where people travel despite the pandemic. I don’t think we’ve seen the end of that spread. One can only speculate, but I think we will notice that there has been a sports holiday in our business, so to speak, says Robin Nilsson.

On the other side of the many tombstones of the Muslim cemetery, an intact lawn area can still be seen. It is the last surface to bury Muslims at this time. Management estimates that the surface can last a year or so at best.

So the floor of the Muslim cemetery is empty.

The lack of free space, which is further affected by the pandemic, has led the Malmö cemetery administration to terminate the agreements with 26 different Scanian funeral authorities that Malmö had previously rented, including the Muslim cemetery.

Today, only Muslims who are registered in Malmö can be buried here, even if the deceased has grown up and has his entire family in the city, but has temporarily registered elsewhere. The pressure of the pandemic has made it even more important to follow this strictly, to avoid a situation where it fills up.

Among other things, this has led to students who have temporarily studied in a student city and passed away, being forced to be buried in a completely different city than their hometown.

Sven-Erik Perlman Aspeklev is the head of the administration cemetery. I wish they didn’t have to deny the families.

– Unfortunately, people end up in trouble now when we are forced to say no. Above all, we have made sure that we can comply with what the funeral law says, that those who are registered here have the right to be buried here, he says.

Inquiries come every week. Families despair when they receive a no, according to the cemetery director. They may make a lot of calls or change funeral homes in the hope that it will help them.

– Families call and pray and pray. I really understand that it is very difficult. But there is no room, says Sven-Erik Perlman Aspeklev.

Behind barricades in another part of the Eastern Cemetery, bulldozers move across the ground. A completely new Muslim quarter will be built to house the deceased in the future.

According to the administration, it will be “in the hair” that the new block is completed, before the land in the regular Muslim cemetery is exhausted.

The Skåne region announced during the week that the British variant of the virus has taken hold and increased in the region. At the same time, the cemetery director Sven-Erik Perlman Aspeklev also seems to see signs of a third wave.

– But now we are starting to learn how to handle this. And we are prepared.