The cemetery, a designated area of land which hosts the remains of our beloved ones who passed on to eternity is no longer a resting place for the deceased. A ground meant to be the permanent resting place of our beloved ones; a sacred environment is now being polluted and desecrated by reprobates with tainted minds whose actions display a callous disregard for the dead. The cemetery has become a dumping ground for waste material including faces and garbage from homes. It has become a home to the demented, and a place for all sort of illegal activities including smoking marijuana and kush, illegal exhumation of skeletal bones for ritual purposes and other unknown diabolical practices.
Kissy Road Cemetery, where late President Ahmad Tejan Kabba and late President Joseph Saidu Momoh were laid to rest has samples of broken graves and empty tombs with no sign of burial apparel, coffin, decomposed bodies or skeletal bones. Other cemeteries around Freetown including Race Course Cemetery, Circular Road Cemetery, King Tom Cemetery, Kissy Mess Mess Cemetery and Accession Town Cemetery have samples of desecrated empty tombs also with the exception of Fourah Bay Community cemetery – a cemetery meant for the burial of indigenes of Fourah Bay Community only.
A standard grave, 6ft long, 2ft wide with a depth of about 3ft or 4ft is sold at Nle 350.00, about $ 15.332. However, there is no permanent resting place for the deceased whose grave was not built with concrete and also for some built with it. Graves built with concrete are now being broken into by unknown people believed to carry away skeletal bones and other burial items while grave diggers usually dug out and disposed of skeletal bones from graves without concrete after a certain number of months or years. This happens even when the relatives of the deceased had purchased the piece of land from the government through the municipal government body – Freetown City Council (FCC).
My late father, Musa Sesay passed away on Wednesday, 15th September, 1999 and was interred at Kissy Road Cemetery (25 years ago). I couldn’t even find his grave when I went there during my research. And, I did not ask. Who would have known in fact? The current grave diggers might not be the ones who dug his grave considering the number of years he passed. I was a small boy then. I was at home when his remains was being conveyed from church to the cemetery for burial. It was on a Sunday. I remember all of that. They didn’t allow us (my other younger siblings and I) to go to the cemetery. Years later, when I grew up (now a big boy), they took me to see his grave. I did not cry though as I did when he died. I visited few times afterwards with my intentions devoid of anything related to necromancy.
Relatives of deceased are usually not contacted to witness the exhumation of the skeletal bones of their loved ones. There are no records of who was buried here or there nor are there records of names of deceased persons whose graves have been broken into. Consequently, the municipal government cannot contact the relatives of the deceased to relate what had happened to them. Graves don’t have numbers as that would have made it easier to identify who was buried at a certain number. The bones of different people including children are gathered together and dumped around or wrapped in a shroud (Kasankay) that’s not completely worn out and thrown into secluded or old graves.
During the dry season, especially in March when there is excessive scorch from the sun, it is obvious for an overpowering acrid from those graves to be driven by winds to nearby residences and that might pose serious health challenges. It is also a risk to one’s life who unknowingly step on a bone and got pierced. The grave is then sold to relatives of the-now deceased person, and it continues on and on – fine money… (Smiles) A certain amount of money is levied as tax on a monthly basis for graves built with concrete. Can you imagine the commotion and shouting from every corner that will be there at the resurrection? Thus, “Get up from me; I was here before you. Who are you and why is your leg over mine? Push away; this is my spot…” I wonder how my late dad’s grave would look like today if it was there. But, like every other relative who did not build the grave of their deceased loved ones, his bones might have been dug and disposed, who knows…
