Liberia eases up on cremation order for Ebola victims

Published 1:30 pm Tuesday, December 30, 2014

MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — Liberia’s government is easing up on its order that all Ebola victims’ bodies be cremated after authorities purchased a plot of land to bury them.

Ciatta Bishop, head of the national Ebola burial team, said Tuesday that the government has secured a 25-acre parcel of land where Ebola victims can now be buried.

The Liberian government ordered that victims be cremated at the height of the crisis because corpses are highly contagious.

Many of those who washed or touched bodies before their burials contracted Ebola.

The cremation decree is highly unpopular in Liberia, where funeral traditions are carefully followed and are considered a sacred obligation to the deceased.

More than 2,000 corpses of suspected Ebola victims have been cremated so far.