Public cemetery full in Sint Maarten
Minister Egbert Jurendy Doran announced on Wednesday during the Council of Ministers press briefing that there are limited burial spaces at the public cemetery in Cul de Sac. Doran said there are no more burial spaces in the ground.
Relatives that have loved ones buried in the ground are asked to lay other loved ones to rest on top of existing grave sites if the need arises.
The Minister explained that there are 420 vaults at the Cul de Sac cemetery that are in use with the exception of a few that were created for the burial of children. Doran explained that the Ministry is presently busy with constructing a few more vaults but since land is limited they are limited in the number of vaults that can be built due to the steepness of the land space.
The Minister explained that in 2022 there were 258 deaths, 241 in 2021, and 233 in 2020 while there were 194 in 2019. This shows that the numbers increased during the last two years while the average between 2010 to 2018 was 174.
Due to this Doran said that a solution has to be found by the end of this year, he said currently the government is working on having persons be cremated and the use of urn vaults would be made available for the burial of the urns.
Doran said using urn vaults would take up less space in the current Cul de Sac cemetery while the government continues its search in locating much-needed land space for another public cemetery.
