Modest funeral plots multiply at the back of an old cemetery at Lesbos (Mytilene). Dirt mounds at the back are a foil for the imposing, marble tombs that dot Saint Panteleimon’s grounds as the graves of refugees that died reaching the island continue to multiply.
The UN estimates that more than 500,000 people have crossed the Mediterranean in 2015 of which nearly 3,000 have died or have gone missing. In some cases the dead are repatriated to their home country, but most are given municipal funerals.
A local charity on Lesbos has begun to hold funerals for migrants and refugees. Volunteers come with flowers. They don’t follow Christian rituals however, not wanting to offend the most likely Muslim deceased.
