The City of Bulawayo is proposing to ban burials of children between the ages of zero to twelve years and make cremation mandatory.
Cremation is the disposal of a dead person’s body by burning it to ashes, typically after a funeral ceremony.
The mandatory cremation of children will save burial space which is increasingly becoming scarce in the country’s second-largest city, according to councillors.
During a council meeting, the Director of the Health Services Department, Dr Edwin Sibanda, said that the Bulawayo City Council had leased a plot of land at Luveve Cemetery to a private contractor who had built a crematorium.
The local authority and the contractor plan to cut cremation fees for children aged zero to twelve years to $30.
Councillor Felix Mhaka supported the cremation of zero to 12-year-old children and proposed that funerals of children between the ages of zero and 12 years should be prohibited with effect from 1 February 2023.
The councillors concurred residents should be encouraged to embrace cremation to save burial space.