Bulawayo City council has closed  West Park Cemetery as it has run out of burial space.

It was closed last Friday.

The local authority has said only Luveve cemetery is operational, but it is also fast running out of space.

A new site in Pumula  South meant to save the situation yet to be gazetted.

Recently, council started limiting burials at West Park to 10 per day and moved all burials of children to Luveve cemetery, before the latest decision to close the cemetery.

Bulawayo Mayor Councillor Martin Moyo  told a full council meeting  on Wednesday that West Park was officially closed last Friday.

He was responding to Ward 22 Councillor Rodney Jele who had inquired on how much space remained at West Park Cemetery for burial.

Clr Moyo said the city was still waiting for a directive from the government following their application for a new piece of land to be gazetted for burial purposes.

“West Park Cemetery was closed last Friday. It’s full to capacity. I remember last Friday one of the city’s distinguished residents Ndubiwa called inquiring about burial space after he wanted one of his relatives who died in South
Africa to be buried at West Park. The only remaining burial space belongs to those people who had made their reservations,” said Clr Moyo.

He said the Ministry of Home Affairs was taking long to gazette land they had identified.

In May, council issued a notice on reservations of graves.

“We kindly request all those who have made reservations of graves at Council cemeteries prior to 2011 to come and show evidence (grave reservation certificates) that their reservations are still valid.

“Failure to do this will lead to these reservations being forfeited and allocated to others, three months from the date of this notice. Kindly report at Tower Block Reception 1st or 2nd floor.

NB: Grave Reservation certificates may be scanned and emailed to by Thobekile Zhou. Source: Byo24News