By CHUSA SICHONE –
A CEMETERY in Mansa District has been closed after discovering that miners and those in the construction industry were exhuming remains of the deceased.
Kanwabutemi Cemetery in Chief Chimese’s area was shut to avoid further exhumation of bones and coffins of the deceased due to severe mining and construction activities.
Mansa Municipal Council (MMC) confirmed this to the Sunday Times during the week, saying the situation could not be allowed to continue because it was inhuman and criminal trespass.
MMC spokesperson Chris Mulaliki said in an interview that the situation was caused by rigorous extracting of sand from the traditional graveyard.
“This was revealed by people who found coffins and bodies of their deceased relatives exhumed as they went to clean the graves.
“At first, they were scared until they were told by onlookers that the vice was being perpetrated by mining and construction activities,” he said.
He said council officials recently inspected Kanwabutemi Cemetery, which borders Spoon and Mwenda villages, following a tip from the public.
Mr Mulaliki said findings indicated that the cemetery could no longer be used as the Public Health Act outlawed unlawful exhuming of remains without permission.
“What has been happening at the cemetery is not only inhuman but criminal.
“We have, however, taken measures. The graveyard has since been closed and secondly, we have stopped all mining and construction activities there and further, no construction of any sort should take place in that area,” he said.
Mr Mulaliki said people had been digging shallow graves to get sand at the cemetery and in the process end up digging the graves and exhuming bones and coffins of the dead.
He has since urged people residing in villages like Mwenda, Spoon, Chitakwa, Mwape Koselela, Motoka, Fundi and Sunday Kabweshamwana, among others, to start burying their deceased relatives at the council cemetery.
Mr Mulaliki said council police would be monitoring Kanwabutemi Cemetery and that whoever will be found trespassing would be prosecuted.
“We are not going to accept a situation where people, because of their interest in wanting to make money, start disturbing the dead resting here. We have a graveyard which is not full, let people use it,” he said.
Mr Mulaliki further, observed that there were a number of graveyards in Mansa which the MMC was planning to close so that  people utilise the council cemetery only.