Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
26 February 2009
Maputo — The new mayor of Maputo, David Simango, has promised to transfer the families living inside the city's Lhanguene cemetery to new plots of land within 100 days, according to a report carried by the independent television station STV.
About 100 families have built shacks inside the cemetery. They show no respect for those buried at Lhanguene, and their children can be spotted playing football over the graves.
This scandal has been going on for years, and Simango is not the first mayor to promise to bring it to an end. The shacks are entirely illegal, yet no attempt has been made to tear them down and evict those who see nothing wrong with squatting in graveyards.
Nobody could complain if the City Council simply bulldozed the shacks and evicted the squatters. But instead Simango plans to pay them to leave. He said that consensus has been reached about the compensation to be paid, and about the new areas to which they will be moved.
But when STV asked some of the Lhanguene residents, they said they knew nothing about any transfer. They claimed that they were willing to leave the cemetery, but demanded "better living conditions". They wanted money to allow them to build better houses, and guarantees that their new plots would have adequate access roads and schools nearby.
The Lhanguene cemetery has been fast running out of space, forcing some funerals to be held in cemeteries in the neighbouring city of Matola, or in the district of Marracuene. The removal of the illegal shacks will liberate a considerable amount of space inside the cemetery and allow more funerals to take place there.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
