AIDS-hit South Africa running out of burial plots*

POSTED: 1547 GMT (2347 HKT), April 11, 2007

Story Highlights
• Johannesburg mayor asks South Africans to consider "nontraditional"
burials
• Appeals to residents to consider stack burials and cremations
• Africans traditionally reluctant to cremate bodies
• Analysts say AIDS epidemic directly to blame for rising mortality rates

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (Reuters) -- AIDS-hit South Africa is running
short of cemetery space and residents of its main city, Johannesburg,
need to consider "nontraditional" burials, including cremation, Mayor
Amos Masondo said on Wednesday.

Masondo said 24 of the city's 35 cemeteries were already at full
capacity and, although enough spaces remain for the foreseeable future,
other options must now be considered.

"The city would like to make an appeal to residents to consider amongst
other options, stack burials and cremations," the SAPA news agency
quoted Masondo as saying at the opening of a new cemetery on the
outskirts of the city.

South African officials have repeatedly warned in recent years of a
looming shortage of burial plots, attributed in part to rapid
urbanization and a cultural reluctance among African families to
consider options such as cremation.

Masondo suggested that families could begin to double up with "stack
burials" at existing, family-held gravesites.

Masondo did not explicitly mention South Africa's HIV/AIDS crisis, which
infects about one in nine of the country's adults, but analysts say the
epidemic is directly to blame for rising mortality rates in the country.

Masondo urged Johannesburg residents to respect existing graveyards and
not to take them over for ramshackle temporary housing.

"Respecting those who are no more can add so much meaning to the land of
the living," he said.