Even the dead are not spared. Ahead of Decoration Day here next week, more than fifty (50) graves have been destroyed, as bodies lie in open air after unknown men raided the Johnsonville Cemetery on Tuesday, March 4.
By: Emmanuel Wise Jipoh
Johnsonville, March 5, 2025/ Family members woke up early Tuesday morning to the horrible news of their loved ones’ graves being damaged with corpses thrown in open as burial cloths and caskets for recent burial stripped off.
Our reporter who visited the cemetery disclosed that over 50 graves had been broken into, caskets, marvel tiles, and other valuable burial items stolen for sales, while dead bodies were left stripped naked.
The news comes ahead of National Decoration Day next week Wednesday, a day set aside to clean and decorate cemeteries across the country.
Zogos, a group of young men and women who largely live off drugs while practically living in these graveyards, are being pointed at as potential suspects.
“We came here this morning to check on our grave, and we met our mother’s body lying down on the ground, no casket, and everything stolen,” Tenneh Ruster, one of the affected family members, told our reporter.
“This is an unfortunate situation, and nobody can give account of it. But you can see here not only our mother’s grave. Look at the other body lying there, which is sorrowful,” she said while pointing.
Other grieving families described the situation as devasting while blaming community dwellers who live near the cemetery for the act, which has the propensity of erupting violence- next Wednesday.
“When we came here this morning, we met our (relative) graves, ripped, they ripped off the marvel stone, and took off the date of birth off the stone. And like this, it’s difficult to identify. Tell me, when it was Decoration, Wednesday, this could be serious noise, between families.” The grieving family member said.
Usually, Decoration Days here are marred by violence, with families fighting over graves due to lack of proper recognition of a deceased family member’s grave.
“If I come to identify my father’s grave and another person come, claiming the same grave, it will be ‘war, ’” Lorpu Johnson said.
Other family members who buried their loved ones in the cemetery complained that their decorations had been thrown in the trash.
The affected family members have called on authorities to immediately deploy security personnel at Johnsonville Cemetery to avoid a potential violent outbreak next Wednesday.
Efforts to reach authorities at the Cemetery and Township Commissioner John S. Randell proved futile as his phone rang endlessly. – Edited by Othello B. Garblah
