Muslim community claim victory in seeing drainage installed in Sheffield's Shiregreen Cemetery

The Star, Sheffield

A Muslim community in Sheffield has claimed a significant victory in seeing drainage installed at waterlogged Shiregreen Cemetery, where for months families have expressed distress at the thought of their loved ones "drowning" and "buried in bathtubs."

Transcript

00:00Good morning Sheffield, it's Alistair from the Sheffield Star. I'm speaking to you on

00:02Shire Green Cemetery where you might remember back in May I came down here for some reporting on a

00:07really traumatic issue that was affecting some of the Muslim communities of Sheffield.

00:12The issue was that the graves down here which are made using these vaults you can see

00:17are they when you bury those you bury a loved one of those it leaves a cavity around them.

00:21Now the issue is that Shire Green Cemetery has recently been absolutely waterlogged in this

00:25quarter of the cemetery that you see behind me. Now the issue there is that that leads to a

00:29situation where families loved ones they couldn't get away from the image that their their family

00:34members were surrounded by water in their graves. It's quite difficult to talk about but I've spoken

00:39to so many people who have been absolutely traumatized by the image of water all around

00:43their families graves around their loved ones and these cavities behind us. Now there is something

00:49of a win here though after months of negotiating with the council is to understand that we are

00:54putting drainage canals into any new graves that can be dug on this quarter of Shire Green Cemetery.

01:00There's a situation where underneath the vaults you see here will be piping to make sure that

01:07this excess water that's building up underground will drain away as it's happening. It's being

01:12seen as a real victory by the South Yorkshire Muslim Burial Committee who have been asking for

01:16this for several months now. A real win to see that no more future burial should have this issue.

01:22Now the next battle they're telling us is that now they want to see retroactive drainage put in

01:27place for the graves that are already here. I've spoken to people who already have loved ones who

01:31are buried here and even though this drainage is being put in place for new graves the existing

01:37ones are very much still going to be filled with water. The drainage might do something to take

01:42away some of the water inside of there but not nearly enough. What they're hoping for now is

01:46retroactive drainage to make sure there are new pipes installed between the graves that will drain

01:50off the excess water that's already there. It makes for an extremely bittersweet moment down

01:56here on Shire Green Cemetery. It is a victory for the Burial Committee that have come down and fought

02:01for this but for them it's very much just the start of the battle. We'll have to go to

02:06Shepparton City Council now for more comment, ask what's going to be done next.

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