By: Aneeqa du Plessis

The Mother City is slowly running out of burial space, especially for Muslims. The Islamic Society in Gordon’s Bay approached the city last month, urging them to make more land available for their burials. But the city argues it has provided sufficient burial land in the surrounding areas. It says when allocating land for burials, it also needs to be mindful of space for recreational facilities, like parks. The society’s Cassim Peer warns they may request more burial space in the years to come.

Speaking on VOC’s Breakfast show on Thursday morning, Peer explained the issue in detail.

“With Gordons Bay being a fairly new Muslim community, we had no cemetery allocated to us and we have been burring our loved ones in Strand, but it has reached a stage where its capacity is overloaded and now it cannot accommodate anymore burials,” explained Peer.

According to Peer, discussions have taken place with the City prior to Covid-19 but not much has amounted from those talks except empty promises.

“In the interim the city did allocate a portion of the Rusthof cemetery for Muslim burials which amounted to 140 grave sites for the surrounding areas but that is obviously not enough moving forward,” added Peer.

Furthermore, Second Deputy President at the Muslim Judicial Council (MJC) and Chairman of the MJC Burial Administration Shaykh Riaad Fataar, reiterated the calls made by Peer that the local community is in dire need of land for a cemetery.

“We have appealed and will continue appealing to the City of Cape Town to accommodate burials. If another pandemic were to strike our people, we would be in serious trouble. It will not only save the COCT maintenance, resources, and even security because the MJC will oversee the site,” explained Fataar.

The City’s cemetery coordinator Susan Brice is currently on leave and could not respond adequately at this time.

VOC