From now on, no more deaths can be brought to the cemeteries of Kintambo, Kinsuka, Kimbanseke, Kinkole-RVA and Tshuenge. These burial sites, popular with the majority of destitute families in Kinshasa, are closed. So decided the provincial government of the capital of the DRC, in a correspondence dated July 9, addressed to the head of the Urban Division of the Interior and Security.

In his letter, Dolly Makambo, provincial minister of the interior, security, decentralization and customary affairs, said that this measure is a reminder of a previous instruction with actual application.

The former mayor of Gombe MLA elected last December, regrets that, despite the formal prohibition to bury the corpses in cemeteries mentioned above, clandestine burials them regularly.

The Kintambo cemetery, for example, yet officially closed since 1998, continues to record secret burials which only third parties require formalities related thereto. Also, the burial conditions of bodies in these necropolises, closed for lack of available space, leave something to be desired. The dead are sometimes piled on top of each other. What is worse, the graves are arranged anyhow.

To access some, you have to climb others. These cemeteries are so saturated that visitors do not know how to make their way through the sepulchres anymore. Despite this state of affairs, these cemeteries continue to receive an average of 100 deaths each week. The gravediggers superimpose the « newcomers » on the « old ».

The employees of the Town Hall committed to these cemeteries continue to collect burial taxes and report only to the mayors of the communes concerned.

Relatively speaking, the cemeteries of « Benseke Futi » in the municipality of Mont -Ngafula and « Necropolis between heaven and earth » to N’sele in the eastern town of Kinshasa, are the only ones where the dead are brought in strict compliance with standards. However, these two burials remain inaccessible for the majority of families, living without resources in Kinshasa. And for good reason, the cost of burial is very high.

For example, at the « Necropolis between Earth and Heaven », the minimum to pay would be around $ 3,000. This represents a fortune for many families moving heaven and earth to meet the minimum necessary for a modest coffin of some 300 USD.

The provincial Minister of the Interior, Security, Decentralization and Customary Affairs of Kinshasa, is a thousand and one times right to close all cemeteries no longer respecting the norms. Problem, however, more than one observer believes that one should rather question the reasons that push these families to bury their relatives in disused necropolises.

At the same time that most cemeteries of Kinshasa are hyper saturated, some believe that the urban authority would have done better to cut red tape, especially in terms of cost of burial in cemeteries still having space.

FA / ZE