The high mortality in the vicinity of the CHU of Beni Messous gives another dramatic dimension to the 2nd wave of Covid 19 in Algiers.
The death curve due to Covid 19 has been racing in the capital for two weeks and to the real tension on hospital beds, is adding an artificial tension of places in cemeteries, source of traffic nascent.
Illustration west of Algiers where the burial permit is not granted without embellishments to the APC of Beni Messous, Sunday 08 November in the morning. We bury of course a Covid case. The family of the deceased quickly appears, in their distress, as prey for administrative officials ambushed to rob them. The scenario is already well lubricated.
In the cemetery, the person in charge of the site first asks his family for a burial permit before designating a place to bury the deceased. At the headquarters of the APC, a few minutes later, a civil status agent first asks to know that there is indeed a free place in the neighbouring cemetery to deliver the documents that allow the funeral to be carried out. Circular maze with no way out.
After thirty minutes and a few innuendoes, where it is said that there are no more places available in the cemetery, the passage through the transaction becomes clear. To hope to bury his relative on time in the cemetery chosen for its proximity to the hospital (place of death) and the family home, it will be necessary to pay a “Tchippa” (fee) to the municipal officer. The misadventure will go no further.
This time, the trap will not close on this family who knows their rights and who were not ready to succumb to the pressing circumstances of a farewell under the Covid-19 procedure.
The suspicion of the existence of traffic in places and burial permits is however reinforced this same Sunday morning. Another municipal officer, seeing the scene well, admits that “this is how it is now”, deploring the tort attitude of his colleagues. Finally, there were many free places available at the Beni Messous cemetery.
The artificial scarcity scheme did not work – this time – to “sell” a “rare” place and the burial permit that “corresponds” to it. The acceleration in mortality linked to the 2nd wave of Covid-19 threatens to give rise to sordid trafficking, including at the most solemn and painful moments of the families of the victims. In Beni Messous, the elected representatives of the APC can no longer say that they did not know.
