By Ayinde Summey
MAIN IMAGE: The burial of a coronavirus victim in Saudi Arabia. Source: @MedinahDate
As the global coronavirus pandemic has affected many parts of our lives, death rituals across cultures have not been spared.
Countries like the United States have banned funeral gatherings to prevent virus transmission, while other countries such as the UK potentially looking to do the same. In South Africa funerals are still allowed but the number of mourners has been restricted and only certain categories of people related to the deceased may attend.
Across the world there is concern about the numbers of mourners gathering to attend services. Social distancing measures are making the events stressful for families.
The BBC reports that this has prompted former Welsh lawmaker Lorraine Barrett to suggest a ban on funeral services in Wales. There the enforcement of social distancing has required that mourners keep at least 2 meters from one another. She believes that this is difficult to achieve at a funeral.
Barrett told the broadcaster that while the limits imposed by various crematoriums and funeral parlours have been put in place to facilitate gatherings, the social distancing measures mean that people are not able to get the comfort they need as they grieve.
Current guidelines allow only immediate family member to be in attendance but Barrett questioned how this could be determined and who would be allowed to attend.
“I’ve dealt with families with 10 siblings, 25 grandchildren, and I’ve heard of families now who are having to decide which members of their family can go and it’s really, really distressing,” Barrett told the BBC.
In Iraq and other countries in the Arab world, burial procedures have been drastically altered.
In normal circumstances, the bodies of the deceased would be washed and prepared by community members. This goes against World Health Organization guidelines which advise against physical contact.
It has also been difficult to find places to conduct burials because of anxiety about contamination of corpses and possible virus transmission. The family members of people who have died of other causes are resisting burials of COVID-19 victims in the same site as their loved ones. This has resulted in delays on arranging the burials.
“It look eight days to get the body of my father from the morgue” Abdul-Hadi Majid, an Iraqi soldier who were among a group that were forced to wait.
