No one turned in Argentina From the economic crisis, and the matter has reached the dead. In a country where about 40% of its population lives below the poverty line, burial and grave maintenance have become a luxury.
The exorbitant cost of burial and grave maintenance, made most families between two options, cremating their dead bodies or staying hungry for months, so they choose the first solution.
“The problem is economic, and people don’t have enough money for the funeral, so relatives help each other or borrow, and some people pay with savings that they have hidden under the mattress,” said Juan Tapia, owner of Kochiria Takuari.
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He added: “Our prices are declining because, unfortunately, the purchasing power is not the same as it was a few years ago. Paying for these services may mean that some families will not eat for a month. ”
cremation
And the cheapest service of this institution, which was established 60 years ago in Buenos Aires, is burning Dead bodies At a cost of 25 thousand pesos (about 376 euros) without the body being put down. From the hospital, the deceased is taken directly to the cemetery in an ordinary coffin made of poplar wood.
Depending on the quality of the coffin and services, the cost may reach 180,000 pesos (about 2700 euros), and this direct service has become the most popular.
“About 90% of customers choose to cremate,” Tabia explained. Young people do not want to know anything about a grave or skylight in a cemetery or burial. ”
In 2018, the bodies of 78.5% of the total number of deaths recorded in Buenos Aires were burned, according to Agence France-Presse accounts, according to official records. This is the highest figure recorded in the past decade.
“To rent space in the cemetery, a certain amount must be paid annually, and many people do not want or cannot do it,” said Tapia, an expert in the field of dead services in Argentina, which is going through the most serious economic crisis since 2001, with the government taking emergency measures to confront it. So they choose to cremate, which is a solution to the problem. “
Vault for sale
In the event that a corpse is buried or a jar containing the ashes of a deceased person has been deposited in an ashes, the municipal graves in the Argentine capital impose annual fees, and maintenance costs ranging from 400 to two thousand pesos (from 6 to 30 euros).
As for private graves, burials are sold starting from 55,000 pesos (830 euros), and the cost of maintenance is 500 pesos (7 euros) as a minimum per month.
A few months ago, translator Patricia Alvarez placed an ad on the Internet to sell a cemetery that her family had bought at the La Chacarita municipality cemetery in the heart of Buenos Aires. “I want to sell it, because it no longer has any meaning,” she said.
“Its maintenance costs are not very high, it is about 500 pesos a month, but when it accumulates it becomes large and is added to other costs at the moment.”
The Alvares family’s tomb looks good, but there are people who accumulate debts, as is evident from the leaflets affixed to their tombs, which require them to “come to speak with the administration” of the cemetery.
There are many abandoned or destroyed graves that the plant covered throughout the cemetery.
Service from the hospital to the cemetery
Maria stands near her mother’s grave, putting gloves and holding a pair of scissors in her hand, preferring not to reveal her family name, fearing that the cemetery staff will try to take revenge on her, saying: “I intend to stop paying 1,500 pesos (22 euros) a month to cut the grass. It’s a great sum! I better come and do it myself. ”
For Jorge Bonacorsi, president of the Argentine Funeral Services Federation, these new practices are compatible with a cultural change taking place and are part of a global trend.
He explained that “the practical side is overcoming emotions.”
Daniel Ferrera, one of the officials in charge of the private gravesite group “Grupo Jardin del Pilar” located in the northern suburbs of the capital, warned that direct service from the hospital to the cemetery had a very strong psychological impact, because loved ones were not allowed to lament the dead.
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