COLOMBO – Sri Lanka today ended the forced cremation of people who died of the coronavirus, after visiting Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan urged Colombo to respect the funeral rites of the island’s minority Muslims.
The government first banned burials last April over concerns – which experts said are baseless – by influential Buddhist monks that the practice could contaminate groundwater and spread the virus.
The policy was decried by members of the South Asian nation’s Muslim community, which constitutes 10% of the 21 million population.
While Health Minister Pavithra Wanniarachchi did not give a reason in her announcement reversing the ban, official sources said Khan raised the subject with both President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa during his trip earlier this week.
Dozens of demonstrators used Khan’s visit as an opportunity to call attention to the Sri Lankan government’s disregard for Islamic burial customs, and carried a mock coffin.
In response to the policy change, Khan thanked his Sri Lankan counterparts.
“I... welcome the Sri Lankan govt’s official notification allowing the burial option for those dying of Covid 19,” he tweeted.
The 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation also raised the forced cremation policy at the United Nations in Geneva this week.
Traditionally, Muslims bury their dead facing Mecca. Sri Lanka’s majority Buddhists, who are strong backers of the current government, are typically cremated, as are Hindus.
Last December, authorities ordered the cremation of at least 19 Muslim Covid-19 victims, including a baby, after their families refused to claim the bodies from a hospital morgue.
Muslim community leaders said more than half of the country’s 459 Covid-19 victims were from the religious minority.
They attributed the disproportionate number of fatalities to a fear of seeking treatment, and in particular, the fear of being cremated should they die of the disease. – AFP, February 26, 2021
