SCHISTO (Greece): Standing by the tiny grave of his five-year-old son within the Orthodox Christian cemetery of Schisto on the outskirts of Athens, Esfandiyar Fagkiri says he feels a "twin ache".
Not solely has he misplaced one in every of his 5 kids, however the Afghan household can't mourn him in response to Muslim non secular ritual as a result of the cemetery is Christian.
Hasibollah Fagkiri was hit and fatally injured by a truck in January 2021 whereas taking part in with different kids close to the doorway to the Malakassa migrant camp, north of Athens, the place he had been dwelling along with his household since September 2020.
NGOs and native authorities blamed the accident on the camp's poor security circumstances and stated it needs to be shut down.
After burying their son, the Fagkiris have been shocked to be instructed that his physique should be exhumed after three years -- in 2024.
That is commonplace process in Greek cemeteries resulting from a persistent lack of house -- particularly within the higher Athens space the place greater than a 3rd of the nation's inhabitants of over 10 million dwell.
However for Hasibollah's grieving household, it's unthinkable.
Islam doesn't enable exhumation or cremation and within the Muslim faith, the physique stays buried perpetually, Fagkiri identified.
However for folks with out a paid household grave, "exhumation after three years is obligatory", insisted Dimosthenis Stamatatos, head of an affiliation of municipalities close to the cemetery of Schisto.
Rising numbers
The stays of the useless are sometimes stored in a particular annex of the cemetery church.
Greece is a predominantly Orthodox Christian nation, and Muslim cemeteries can solely be present in Thrace, a area within the northeast of the nation close to the Greek-Turkish border, 750 kilometres (466 miles) from Athens.
The realm is residence to a centuries-old Muslim minority, a legacy of the Ottoman Empire's presence within the space.
In Athens, the variety of Muslims was once negligible, however this has modified within the wake of the 2015 refugee disaster.
There are actually about half-a-million Muslims within the Greek capital after successive migration waves and the arrival of hundreds of households from the Center East, North Africa and the Indian subcontinent fleeing battle and poverty.
Thrace is just too distant for many households to bury their useless there, and the price of transferring the our bodies is prohibitive.
"Given the excessive value of transferring the useless to Thrace, the variety of burials of Muslims in Orthodox cemeteries in Athens has elevated lately," Rezai Mohtar, president of the Afghan neighborhood, instructed a press convention final week.
The Covid-19 pandemic has made issues even more durable for grieving households, he stated.
Based on Javed Aslam, a number one member of the Pakistani neighborhood in Greece, Muslim migrant communities have lengthy been calling for a cemetery in Athens.
Municipal official Stamatatos identified that in 2016 the Orthodox Church of Greece donated 20,000 sq. metres (5 acres) of land at Schisto cemetery for a bit reserved for Muslims.
However a authorized dispute with the contractor has delayed the completion of the venture.
A senior official on the Greek ministry of schooling, which additionally oversees non secular issues, stated the venture has been given the go-ahead and "can be carried out given the big variety of Muslims in Athens."
However rights teams and the primary opposition leftist get together Syriza will not be so optimistic, pointing to the present conservative authorities's sturdy anti-migration rhetoric amid recurring allegations of unlawful migrant pushbacks on the nation's borders.
"In the case of respect for the rights of migrants and refugees, the context in Greece is detrimental," stated Syriza MP Giorgos Psychogios.
The primary official mosque in Athens opened in November 2020, taking greater than a decade to finish after working into sturdy opposition from the Orthodox Church, in addition to from nationalist teams.