Emad had just dealt with the death of his father when he was forced with a  heartwrenching decision—  either find a remote cemetery or have an old grave of a family member opened in which he could bury his father. The Dandan Cemetery in Tunis, where he lived was full.

Emad had just dealt with the death of his father when he was forced with a  heartwrenching decision—  either find a remote cemetery or have an old grave of a family member opened in which he could bury his father. The Dandan Cemetery in Tunis, where he lived was full.

“A lot of people find it difficult to bury their dead because the cemetery has become full and has no room to dig even one extra grave,” says Mohamed who has been working as a gravedigger in the Dandan Cemetery for 15 years. “The Tunisian authorities have done nothing to build new cemeteries or expand old ones.”

Located in a slum adjacent to Tunis, the Dandan Cemetery houses over 10,000 graves, mostly of members from the same families living in the area. Tunis, with a population of nearly 2.7 million people according to a 2014 census, only has 60 cemeteries, some of which are about to close down due, in part, to the urbanization of Tunis’ suburbs.

Head of Tunis Municipality Saifallah Asram says there are huge pressures on the government to allocate plots to build new cemeteries in light of an acute shortage of available land in Tunis. This shortage, says Asram, has worsened over the past few years, due to substantial urbanization without giving thought to building enough cemeteries.

The cemetery crisis has also affected the 76-hectare Jallaz Cemetery, the largest in the country. It receives 4,000 corpses annually.

“The situation in the Jallaz cemetery has become terrible due to the huge pressures on the remaining graves,” says Asram. “The government is planning to expand this cemetery by preparing a new 8-hectare plot that used to be a garbage dump.”

“This expansion of the cemetery is only a quick-fix,” says Hassan Khyari who has been working in the Jallaz Cemetery for 40 years. “The new plot is of a limited area and will be filled within four or five years at most, in light of the absence of other expansion plans.”

Director of Construction at the Ministry of Equipment (MoE) Rawda Arabi says by the end of this year a study will be conducted to investigate the situation of cemeteries. The MoE, she says, will allocate plots to construct new cemeteries in and around Tunis.