Accra cemeteries running out.

Accra residents may have problems burying their dead in a couple of years due to lack of space in the citys cemeteries. Acting director of the public health department of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), James E. Aryeetey, told the daily newspaper Graphic Ghana that the Awudome and Osu public cemeteries are now full while space at the La public cemetery is running out. Furthermore, the 73 acres of available land at the recently acquired Mile Eleven cemetery is being encroached upon by the Korle-Bu teaching hospital, the 37 Military Hospital and the Ghana standards board laboratory.

Pressure on cemeteries and the relative cost of burials have triggered a rise in the number of cremations in the country, according to Joe A. Quarcooo of the Ridge cremation and funeral services in Accra. Currently about four people are cremated in Ghana each week while the Ghana cremation society has 3,500 members out of a population of 22.4 million. There are currently two crematoriums in the country: one at the Osu cemetery in the capital and the other in Kumasi in central Ghana.