The KingTom cemetery... again

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...

KingTom cemetery and the burial teams

The KingTom cemetery is very near the centre of Freetown... and this is where they're burying many of the Ebola-related bodies. The terrain is jungle-like... and even has a few unwanted, rooting animals roaming about. 

The 8 burial teams, spread out across the Freetown area, converge to carry the dead back into the cemetery to be buried in unmarked graves. No family. No friends. No services. But, the group of burial boys I met were dedicated and hard-working.

A mother and her two small children were buried together after succumbing to the Ebola virus.

The path that leads through the KingTom cemetery is a community path... littered with garbage and frequently travelled. This is a burial team coming out after burying the 5 bodies they picked up that morning (Tuesday, September 30, 2014).

The cemetery lacks a fence. The holes are dug by hand by a team of 10 guys working for the Freetown City Council. I have to admit, it's a scary place, even in the light of day. My hope is the people buried here will be remembered and will rest in peace.