Sri Lankan govt apologises for cremating Muslim COVID victims

The Sri Lankan government has formally apologised for its policy of forcibly cremating Muslim Covid-19 victims, a practice that violated sacred religious rites and sparked outrage among the Muslim minority.

The apology statement approved by the Cabinet on Monday said, "The country's new law will guarantee the right to burial or cremation to ensure the burial customs of Muslims or any other community are not violated in the future."

Despite assurances from the World Health Organisation (WHO) that Islamic burial rites pose no risk during the Covid-19 pandemic, the government disregarded these guidelines and forcibly cremated the bodies of Muslims, along with those of other victims.

Muslims traditionally bury their dead, while the majority of Sri Lankans follow Buddhism and typically cremate their deceased, similar to Hindus.

Sri Lanka's Muslim community, comprising 10% of the country's 22 million people, continues to suffer from the trauma of being denied the right to bury their loved ones according to Islamic rituals.

“We will now sue two academics, Meththika Vithanage and Channa Jayasumana, who were behind the forced cremation policy of the government and we will also seek compensation,” the spokesman for the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka, Hilmy Ahamed, told AFP.

During Covid-19 pandemic, the then President of Sri Lanka, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, had banned the burial of those who died due to Coronavirus.

Defending his actions in a book published earlier this month, the former president said that he sought 'expert advice' from natural resources professor Mithika Withanage on preventing the spread of the disease.

In February 2021, Rajapaksa reversed his policy of forced cremations following an appeal by former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan during his visit to Sri Lanka.

The Sri Lankan government then permitted the burial of Muslim Covid-19 victims without the presence of their families, under strict military supervision, in the remote eastern region of Oddamavadi.