A Muslim community in Sheffield has claimed a significant victory in seeing drainage installed at waterlogged Shiregreen Cemetery, where for months families have expressed distress at the thought of their loved ones "drowning" and "buried in bathtubs."
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00:00Good morning Sheffield, it's Alistair from the Sheffield Star. I'm speaking to you on
00:02Shire Green Cemetery where you might remember back in May I came down here for some reporting on a
00:07really traumatic issue that was affecting some of the Muslim communities of Sheffield.
00:12The issue was that the graves down here which are made using these vaults you can see
00:17are they when you bury those you bury a loved one of those it leaves a cavity around them.
00:21Now the issue is that Shire Green Cemetery has recently been absolutely waterlogged in this
00:25quarter of the cemetery that you see behind me. Now the issue there is that that leads to a
00:29situation where families loved ones they couldn't get away from the image that their their family
00:34members were surrounded by water in their graves. It's quite difficult to talk about but I've spoken
00:39to so many people who have been absolutely traumatized by the image of water all around
00:43their families graves around their loved ones and these cavities behind us. Now there is something
00:49of a win here though after months of negotiating with the council is to understand that we are
00:54putting drainage canals into any new graves that can be dug on this quarter of Shire Green Cemetery.
01:00There's a situation where underneath the vaults you see here will be piping to make sure that
01:07this excess water that's building up underground will drain away as it's happening. It's being
01:12seen as a real victory by the South Yorkshire Muslim Burial Committee who have been asking for
01:16this for several months now. A real win to see that no more future burial should have this issue.
01:22Now the next battle they're telling us is that now they want to see retroactive drainage put in
01:27place for the graves that are already here. I've spoken to people who already have loved ones who
01:31are buried here and even though this drainage is being put in place for new graves the existing
01:37ones are very much still going to be filled with water. The drainage might do something to take
01:42away some of the water inside of there but not nearly enough. What they're hoping for now is
01:46retroactive drainage to make sure there are new pipes installed between the graves that will drain
01:50off the excess water that's already there. It makes for an extremely bittersweet moment down
01:56here on Shire Green Cemetery. It is a victory for the Burial Committee that have come down and fought
02:01for this but for them it's very much just the start of the battle. We'll have to go to
02:06Shepparton City Council now for more comment, ask what's going to be done next.