Tag: Burial

Earlier, there was speculation about the government’s scouting for several places all over Sri Lanka which are suitable for locating graveyards for the COVID dead.

A statement from the OIC and Pakistan PM Imran Khan’s intercession in the context of the UNHRC session could have been the immediate reasons.

Health Minister Pavithra Wanniarachchi a short while ago issued a fresh gazette notification allowing the burial of Covid-19 victims reversing an earlier decision that made cremation mandatory.

The coming UNHRC session and the visit of the Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan may have influenced the reversal of the highly divisive policy of not allowing the burial of COVID victims

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa has announced that Sri Lanka will commence the burial of remains of Covid victims.

The Sinhala-Muslim political rift shapes government policy, not scientific evidence

No committee had been appointed to go into the question of burying or cremating the COVID dead

Some members from the first and second appointed expert committees, set up to study and recommend if COVID-19 victims could be buried, had clashed during a meeting held on Dec.31, with contradicting views, with some members saying burials could cause harm while all 11 members of the second committee saying burials could be permitted.

The Maldives government, last week sent an official communique to the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry, stepping in to bury COVID-19 victims following serious concerns raised by the Muslim community here over the mandatory cremation only policy in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka's Muslims feel badly let down by the Supreme Court’s summary dismissal of their plea to allow burial