BRIEFS. Metro

Municipal cemeteries overcrowded

carlos lemos/ la prensa

tight space: Cemeteries in the Municipality of Panamá have no room to spare due to more than 1,500 burials this year. 1111657

Just as real estate in the capital grows ever more valuable, space in the nine municipal cemeteries in the district of Panama has become all but priceless this year, since a total of 1,694 people were buried between January and September, some 113 more than during the same period last year.

According to Nilza Caballero, the director of Social Services, plots in the cemeteries in Juan Díaz and the Amador Causeway continue to be in highest demand, which saw 472 and 300 burials this year, respectively. Not a single additional soul will fit there unless other bodies are exhumed and moved, she added.

In order to exhume bodies, the Municipality of Panamá must either prove that the plot is in financial arrears, or seek the authorization of family members to transfer the remains to an ossuary and reserve the space for another family member.

In the meantime, the Municipality is planning to inter the dead in a 10-hectare cemetery in the town of Utivé, located east of the capital city, which was opened in 2004. There have been 189 burials there so far this year.

Some space also exists in the Corozal cemetery, but the occupancy rate is more expensive, at about $30 per year, compared to $10 in most other municipal cemeteries.

The Department of Funeral Services reported a total of $56,114 in unpaid municipal cemetery space between January and September. Private cemeteries reported nearly $395,000 in late payments.