Call for new town cemetery

 MADANG town is in urgent need of a new cemetery, acting deputy town manager and coordinator health and social services, Philip Posanau says.

Posanau said saw the need yesterday after Modilon Hospital authorities approached him to bury nine unclaimed bodies that had been kept in the hospital morgue since 2011. 

He said he had been advising relatives to bury their dead in village cemeteries outside the town.

“The public cemetery is already full and we don’t have any space left; people are burying bodies on top of  existing graves,” Posanau said.

He said the Madang Urban LLG had been trying to negotiate with locals to organise a cemetery that would be fully controlled by locals in collecting fees but all approaches were unsuccessful.

“No landowner is willing to offer a piece of land for a cemetery. We have been trying for 10 years,” he said.