The announcement was made at dawn last 13 April when 11 coffins arrived at the Porto Empedocle pier “fished out” in the waters off Lampedusa. Yesterday, during a city council meeting specifically convened to “welcome” the institutional visit of the prefect of Agrigento Filippo Romano, he – among many things – talked about it again. He will be built in the municipal cemetery of Palma di Montechiaro, the Islamic cemetery of the province. An area specifically dedicated to the burials of those who are not Catholic and who until now, at the request of their families, have been moved to the Islamic cemetery of Messina.
The prefect’s announcement: “An Islamic cemetery will be created in the province”
The mayor Stefano Castellino welcomed the appeal of the Roman prefect, and did so with the pride of a member of the Fratelli d’Italia party which has a human approach on this front. “Every time the prefecture asked us to provide burials for the migrants gathered in Lampedusa we responded ‘present’. On the last occasion, when 11 coffins were landed in Porto Empedocle, we welcomed 4 bodies. The municipal cemetery of Palma di Montechiaro it is being expanded and there is an area of land that does not take away space either from the burial niches or from the noble chapels of the people of Palma. It is an area that also has a possible independent access”.
Castellino, without knowing it, at the time of the indications for the expansion of the holy field, did not want to eliminate the ground field. “But it is an area that is not requested by the people of Palma for burials. Therefore – he explains – it takes nothing away from the community. When there was an inspection by the officials of the prefecture and the imam, we ascertained that it is suitable for them : unfortunate migrants who cannot reach Sicily alive”.
Palma di Montechiaro, intending to carry forward the so-called “Mattei plan”, on the occasion of the opening of the Islamic cemetery, will also inaugurate – in the historic center – the wall of the Three Religions. “It is an old surrounding wall that has three niches with the symbols of Christianity and the Islamic and Jewish religions” – explained Stefano Castellino -. The wall of the Three Religions is one of the projects in the candidacy dossier created on the proposal of the “Io sono PALMA” group, created thanks to a competition of ideas.
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