In the largest cemetery in Latin America, dead people are buried at night

Covid-19 changed life in the largest cemetery in Latin America, in São Paulo, and today there are queues for families to perform, even if it is at night, the funeral ceremonies.

Brazil is the second country with more cases of covid-19 in the world (more than 600 thousand) and is the third with more deaths, close to 40 thousand. The cemetery of Vila Formosa, on the east side of the largest Brazilian city, is today an evident sign of the pandemic.

“Our routine was a little rushed, but nothing compared to what we have today (…) We did around 30 burials a day. On a very busy day there were 45. Today we are doing an average of 50 to 60 a day burials, “James Alan, a grave digger at the cemetery for seven years, told Lusa.

Burials are held one after another, even after dark. At the burials of the victims of the covid-19 there are a maximum of five people present, as determined by the local government.

Employees are afraid of becoming infected. “We spent practically the whole day together and are afraid of becoming infected,” said James Alan. “From a total of 50 to 60 burials we do, in at least 10 or even 15 [deles, os familiares] want to open [os caixões], but the orientation is that it cannot “be and the tombs must remain sealed,” he added.

According to the Municipal Funerary Service of São Paulo, only in May 1891 burials were carried out in the cemetery Vila Formosa. Across the city – considering municipal, private cemeteries and the crematorium – 6401 burials were recorded in January, 5985 in February, 7077 in March, 8296 in April and 9794 in May this year, for a total of more than 37 thousand, plus ten thousand than in the same period last year.

The prefecture of the largest city in Brazil in early April released a funeral plan created to prevent the collapse in the burial of bodies in the face of increased deaths from the new coronavirus.

Among the measures announced by the mayor of São Paulo, Bruno Covas, includes the opening of 13,000 graves, the hiring of 220 gravediggers and the acquisition of more than 30 cars for the Funerary Service fleet.

Evangelical pastor Rogério Xavier was one of those who went to bury with a colleague, 63, who died of Covid-19. With a Bible in hand, Rogério Xavier tried to comfort the victim’s family.

“He was a friend, he was a minister in the house of God, he had a wife, four children. He was inside the house, he was not leaving, however, the children have to work and he probably got the virus this way. He got it, got it the daughter, and two sons. The wife and the other son did not take it. As he was the most fragile person “he ended up dying, the pastor told Lusa, visibly moved.

In the periphery of the east side of São Paulo, cases and deaths caused by the disease have been frequent.

Daiane Cristina Gomes Lígia Bernarda was at the cemetery on the same occasion to bury her grandfather, Dermival, 77, who also died because of covid-19 and was only buried after dark.

Throughout the day, the family waited for the body to be released by law enforcement officials. Without being able to see her grandfather’s body, Daiane lamented a context that does not honor her grandfather’s memory.

“We stayed all day, since today’s half note when they broke the news [da morte do avô] for us until five o’clock in the afternoon when the body was released. It is a lack of respect. We were outside waiting, waiting for the time when the body would be buried, hungry because we have no conditions “, just” waiting for the funeral “, he said.

The pandemic in Brazil has been the subject of several international alerts after the government, led by Bolsonaro, started by minimizing the disease, refusing confinement measures and pushing for medical treatments whose effectiveness has not been confirmed.

In the midst of the crisis, there were two replacements of health ministers and the government has already announced that it does not intend to continue to release the official numbers of infections and deaths, claiming that doctors are staggering the figures.

But in Vila Formosa, in the cemetery founded in 1949, it is time to mourn the dead.

“We are living in a time when, almost every day, we are seeing [[mortes] in this region of the city, in Itaquera and São Miguel, which is a peripheral region. Unfortunately, we have news of one and the other who died or is contaminated. This is not an unusual thing “, said Pastor Rogério Xavier, trying to rationalize the pain in a place where 1.5 million people have already been buried.

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