Rome is unable to bury its dead

Signs with a dark message appeared in Rome. “Sorry, mom, if I still can’t bury you”. They were ridden by Oberdan Zuccaroli, an advertising businessman who lost his mother on March 8. His remains were this week in a deposit in the Flaminio cemetery, the largest in the city. It has been over a month since she died, but he still has not been able to bury her.

Like that of Zuccaroli’s mother, hundreds of dead bodies whose relatives have opted for cremation are waiting weeks before being buried in the capital of the third country in the euro zone. The public company which manages the cemeteries of Rome, Ama, recognizes that in the burial chambers there are 850 more coffins than in normal times. Funeral homes are increasing this number 2000 people.

One of them is the son of Andrea Romano, deputy of the Italian Democratic Party, who by denouncing his situation on social networks managed to give visibility to an atrocious scandal. “I debated a lot with his mother about whether we should make our case public. I would have preferred not to speak. We decided to do it because there are hundreds of families like us, without an answer “, said the deputy of this newspaper.

Their son, Dario, was 24 years old and had been ill since birth. He died two months ago, but he is not yet buried either. In the pain of losing a son, Romano is made worse by the lack of responses from local authorities. They don’t know how to tell him when he can bury her. “The right to bury loved ones has to do with the rights of human civility, with the roots of human dignity,” he emphasizes. They have asked for their son to be cremated and they know that a few days ago he was cremated. However, their ashes are not returned to him.

Many casualties

“We have a space for the family in the summer cemetery. I have been several times to inform me and they are not able to give me a date – he assures -. It seems that workers are lacking. I said I will bury my son, but they won’t let me either “. Like Zuccarelli’s mother, Dario is in a warehouse in the Flaminio cemetery, unable to visit him.

The version given by public company Ama is that the delays in cremations and subsequent burials are due to an extraordinary number of deaths from the pandemic. As they point out, from October 2020 until today in Rome it was recorded a 35% increase in deaths compared to the same months of the previous two years.

They also say they will hire 20 more workers, invest up to 2 million euros for the upkeep of cemeteries and create new crematoriums in the cemetery of Flaminio. However, not even in the harshest months of the first wave in Bergamo, the city hardest hit by covid in Italy, the delays are so long.

The pandemic is undoubtedly a factor that has made the problem worse. Another is the increase in preferences for incineration and lack of investment.

But everything comes from much further, explains the national secretary of the Federation of the Italian funeral sector (Federcofit), Giovanni Caciolli. The main problem is the extreme bureaucracy. “To give you an idea – he says – Rome is the only city in Italy which first asks to present an authorization, which will then be transmitted to the city council. After having examined it, he issues another authorization to Mistress, and it is only then that the authorization returns to the one who requests it. “

Funeral workers protested last week to, among other things, demand that these cumbersome procedures be speeded up. “It’s a situation that has been going on since October. There are deposits inside the two large cemeteries with corpses piled up without a cold room or any sanitary protection. These are bombs that at other times would have caused a stench, ”Caciolli says.

According to his calculations, the bodies are there between 30 and 45 days, until cremation is authorized. After that, weeks may pass until they finally reach the funeral.

The chaos of Roman cemeteries has reached the prosecutor’s office after the Italian Association of Funeral Excellence, which brings together funeral workers, reported possible crimes of omission of responsibility and theft of bodies.

After the complaint of the deputy Romano, the mayor of Rome, Virginia Raggi, apologized publicly and called him to tell him that, “as a mother”, she can only “Imagine from afar what you are suffering“.

“My heart is full of painRaggi of the 5 Star Movement wrote on his Facebook. Burial delays do not help the mayor before the next municipal elections this fall. This is only the last chapter of the Roman municipal collapse that the locals have experienced every day, since before Raggi arrived.

At the moment, relatives do not even know in which warehouse the coffins of their relatives are located or when they will be able to bury their ashes.

The avant-garde