Morocco Faces Cemetery Crisis: Overcrowding and Neglect Plague Burial Grounds

In this report submitted to parliament during the presentation of its budget, the Ministry of the Interior reveals that 57 million dirhams have been allocated to municipalities, between September 2022 and August 2023, for the acquisition of plots to accommodate new cemeteries. Morocco currently has 1,259 cemeteries, most of which are saturated and do not have burial registers or a surveillance system, according to Al Ahdath Al Maghribia.

Due to the poor management and lack of maintenance of cemeteries by local authorities, these places have become refuges for the homeless and delinquents and are in a worrying state of unsanitary conditions. A situation repeatedly denounced by deputies from the majority as well as the opposition, who have never ceased to deplore the state of dilapidation of cemeteries, including the most famous ones like the Chouhada cemetery in Rabat.

The solution found by the Ministry of the Interior to remedy this situation has been to encourage municipalities to organize themselves to create new cemeteries, and to better manage and rationalize their financial and human resources. In this case, budgetary credits are allocated to them to rehabilitate and maintain cemeteries, especially in urban areas. It is a matter of reviewing the management method of these cemeteries.