For some time now, the Itatolo cemetery has been ploughed by erosion that is causing the graves to be emptied of corpses, which are now exposed at the bottom. The situation does not seem to move the public authorities, while the rainy season is approaching with erosion that promises to be even more devastating.
“Improve the living conditions of our dead.” These words of the former mayor of Makélékélé, Maurice Kihoundzou known as Maurel, once mocked, take on their full meaning today, in view of the spectacle offered by the Itatolo cemetery. Many tombs are swept away by erosion.
The spectacle is distressing. The corpses are found in the depths, with or without shrouds.
Others still lie in partially destroyed graves, awaiting the next rains which will surely destroy them.
The inevitable arrival of the rainy season will sweep away even more, scattering the bodies or what is left of them, while the public authorities remain indifferent to the disturbances of what would be an eternal rest for the deceased.
Families who are able to do so exhume their deceased and rebury them in the village.
A titanic task to find the tomb, if by chance it still exists.
When the grave is found, the act of exhuming is just as perilous as the undertakers risk falling, which can be fatal, during the entire operation.
Admit that these agents do not operate for the money that the work they do provides, but first and foremost out of a duty of humanity. A duty towards these mortal remains who were also men like them and for whom they have respect. Their paltry fee represents nothing compared to the immensity of the work accomplished.
The process of exhumation and reburial is as expensive as the first burial. In addition to a new coffin, there are administrative constraints for which families must pay for services, to the courts or to funeral directors, except at the Ministry of the Interior where authorizations are not subject to any payment, therefore free.
Itatolo is a municipal cemetery. It is therefore up to the municipality of Brazzaville to guarantee “the living conditions of the dead”, if indeed, as Mayor Maurel so aptly put it, the dead also have a “life”.
Faced with the ongoing disaster and the urgency of finding solutions to this situation, many families are calling for help from the public authorities to proceed with the exhumation and reburial of their deceased in places where they will be guaranteed eternal rest in peace.
No one dares to predict what the emotion will be of any parent who, on the first of November, flowers in hand, finds a huge crevasse where the grave of his deceased relative should have been.
Such a situation gives rise to a feeling of guilt that never leaves you for the rest of your life, especially if for base financial reasons you have postponed a long-planned exhumation.
To a lesser extent, the situation is almost the same at the cemetery of Tiémé where tombs are desecrated and razed to build housing there. A practice that has become common and which also seems to benefit from the indifference of the public authorities.
“A country that does not honor its dead has no future,” the saying goes. It highlights the importance of funeral rituals and respect for the deceased in a society.
Honoring the dead is often considered a fundamental pillar of human civilization, helping to maintain collective memory and strengthen social bonds.
One has to wonder, in view of the post-mortem drama affecting our deceased in Itatolo, whether the Congolese still have all their humanity?
Bertrand BOUKAKA/The Echoes of Congo-Brazzaville
