VOLUNTEERS from all across Bahrain have come forward to protect one of Bahrain’s biggest graveyards badly affected by the recent storms.
The volunteers have been present to safeguard and restore the Hunainiya Cemetery after several graves broke up due to heavy rains witnessed on Monday and Tuesday.
Around 100 graves were opened up, officials revealed. Fortunately, unlike a previous infamous incident in 2017, corpses were not forced out of flooded burial places.
Officials and workers from the Sunni Waqf (Endowments) Directorate, alongside volunteers, continue to work on reinforcing the graves affected.
Southern Municipal Council services and public utilities committee chairman and area councillor Khalid Shajra, who was also present on site, said volunteers were arriving in co-ordinated shifts to safeguard the cemetery.
“There is security monitoring the area and undertakers at hand inside the cemetery, but people believe that until the graves are fully reinforced, they need to safeguard the place,” Mr Shajra told the GDN. “Anything could happen, especially when graves have opened up,” he added.
“There are genuine fears over body snatchers, wild animals and even sexual deviants desecrating corpses, despite cement slabs being placed as a barrier between the bottom of the graves and the tombstones.
“To many people this is not an exaggeration, it is a possibility, and that’s why we are seeing more and more volunteers stepping in to restore the cemetery back to its original state.”
Similar ground movements have been encountered at other cemeteries across Bahrain, as a result of the heavy downpours, but Hunainiya was by far the worst affected because of its low-lying location.
Mr Shajra said large amounts of water accumulated there because it lies in a valley. He also claimed tankers that had drained flooded roads had made matters worse by allegedly dumping their contents nearby.
“They should start disposing of the water in faraway proper channels, not near the cemetery,” he added. “The time has also come for cemeteries, starting with Hunainiya, to have proper drainage networks.”
Mr Shajra called for a proper address to the cemetery’s problem as graves continue to break up.
“I understand that whatever rainfall was witnessed in 24 hours is equivalent to 18 months of rain in the whole Gulf region,” he said.
“Even the strongest of structures would crack, but government officials need to be prepared and have a suitable solution in place because being situated in a valley makes any natural occurrence potentially disastrous.”
mohammed@gdnmedia.bh
Clean-up begins in Dubai – Pages 14-15
&uuid=(email))