Welcome to KingTom cemetery... again. I spent another couple of hours here on Wednesday with two local journalists. The cemetery caretaker, Mr. Parker, told me the previous day that not one local journalist had been to the cemetery to "see for themselves". So, I organized a small group... very safely... to visit and talk to the retrieval teams, the burial guys and the caretaker.
James Hamilton, a gravedigger, ponders the palm leaves he planted to mark each of the new graves. There are just too many graves to keep track of... James shows up at 7am, clears the jungle bush, and digs (with the other diggers) up to 30 graves a day.
Mr. Abdul Rahman Parker is the cemetery caretaker. He works for the Freetown City Council and is a very dedicated record-keeper and supervisor. He too is sometimes "sickened" by what he sees.
The team of diggers at the KingTom cemetery... They have to buy their own shovels and "cutlasses" (used for clearing the jungle bush before digging the graves). The Freetown City Council supplied them with boots and a raincoat earlier in the year.
I spoke to the head of WHO last night (Wednesday) and pleaded with him to buy these guys some shovels and cutlasses... He'll take it up with his team, he promised. Ideally, some "partner" will organize a small, mechanized backhoe/digger to help dig the graves.
And, the bodies continue to come...
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