Madrid Muslims Face Burial Crisis as Cemetery Space Runs Out

Since February, the Muslim community in Madrid no longer has a place to bury their dead. Houssain el Gharrafi Achluch, 41, lost his cousin in December, whose remains were finally repatriated to Morocco, after two weeks of searching for a plot. The deceased would have wanted to be buried in Madrid where she grew up, lived, worked and paid taxes, and where her three children aged 13, 11 and 8 also reside. Muslims in the capital are desperate in the face of the inaction of the authorities to solve the problem. "We are Madrilenians and we are not asking for any privilege, we are asking to have the same right as any other citizen," Achluch confides to El País.

The only municipal Muslim cemetery still available in the Community of Madrid, which was located in Griñón, 40 minutes from the capital, was closed in February. No places available also in the cemeteries of the neighboring communities, most of which do not accept people who are not registered. In 2016, it had been proposed to develop 10,000 square meters in the municipal cemetery of Carabanchel for the benefit of Muslims in Madrid. But the measure is slow to be implemented. Yet the city of Madrid alone has 14 municipal cemeteries for non-Muslims.

"Many want to be buried in Spain and very few want to be repatriated, mainly because it is difficult and expensive to be buried there," explains the director of the Islamic Cultural Center of Leganés. The Muslim community had to set up a solidarity fund, made up of annual contributions ranging from 25 to 60 euros, and intended to repatriate the deceased or bury them in another community. But if there are more than five burials in a row, the fund cannot cover the costs, he specifies.

Since 2015, the need for Muslim cemeteries was already being felt in Spain, which had more than two million Muslims for 22 cemeteries with Muslim plots. A figure that rose to 35 in 2020, but with the increase in deaths and the closing of borders due to Covid-19, the lack of Muslim plots has become more glaring. The Municipal Funeral and Cemetery Services Company of Madrid (EMSF) and the Madrid section of the Islamic Commission of Spain (CIE) are negotiating with the municipal authorities to find a solution to this problem that also affects Andalusia, the Murcia region, Catalonia and Valencia.