The world's largest cemetery, in Iraq, is expanding at double its usual rate as Shi'ite militias bury their dead from the war against Islamic State.
The Wadi Al-Salam cemetery is the world's largest graveyard, where more than six million bodies have been buried. According to UNESCO, the Wadi Al-Salam ("Valley of Peace" in English) cemetery is the final resting place of dozens of prophets, scientists and royals. The cemetery extends from the city's centre to the far northwest and accounts for 13 per cent of the city's area, expanding further every day.
According to a 2021 Reuters report, Wadi Al-Salam is expanding at double its usual rate.?From above, the cemetery can be mistaken for a city, with the graves there looking like cramped buildings. Muslims visit it from various parts of the world.
It is located in Iraq's Shi'ite holy city of Najaf.
The pace of daily burials rose to 150-200 after Islamic State, the ultra-hardline Sunni group, overran a third of the country in 2014, said Jihad Abu Saybi, a historian of the cemetery. The rate was 80-120 a day previously, he said.
The cemetery has a special place in the hearts of Shi'ite Muslims as it surrounds the Mausoleum of their first imam, Ali Bin Abi Talib, a cousin and son-in-law of Prophet Mohammad.
Millions of graves of different shapes lie in the roughly 10 square km (4 square miles) cemetery that attracts burials from Shiites all over the world. By nationality, Iraq's Iranian neighbours are thought to come second in number of people interred near Ali's golden-domed shrine.
Further, the cemetery stands as a witness to a unique example of a cultural tradition. It also represents a traditional method of land use.
As land becomes scarce, the cost of a standard 25 square metre family burial lot has risen to about 5 million Iraqi dinars ($4100), almost double the amount paid for the same lots before violence escalated as IS exerted control over large swathes of north and western Iraq in 2014.
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