Rites surrounding death change as coronavirus ravages Peru

Every day Joselyn García lights two red candles before a marble urn that holds her mor's ashes in living room of her wooden home in rth of Peru’s capital.

She tells her mor how much everyone misses her, and recounts latest goings-on in family — state of García's online clothing business and how people are handling lockdown.

“It's such a relief,'' says García, 25, only daughter of María Cochachín, who worked cleaning offices in Peru's Ecomy Ministry before she contracted vel coronavirus.

Burial was a trition for both Peru's indigeus Inca culture and Spanish who colonized country. And millions of Peruvians would visit ir loved ones' graves at least once a year, many more frequently, to eat and drink and pay tribute to deceased on Day of De every vember.

With arrival of pandemic, that trition has taken a blow. To prevent infection and save in capital's overstretched cemeteries, people have begun to cremate de, fundamentally changing rites and tritions that surround death in country.

“It's unprecedented,'' said Christopher Heaney, a history professor and expert on Inca funeral rites at Penn State University.

Day of De trition is replicating itself, in tiny ways across Lima, in shrines people are building inside ir homes, said am Warren, an expert on medicine in Peru at University of Washington.

At least 4,686 coronavirus victims were cremated in Peru between March and mid-August, according to Health Ministry officials. That's nearly 20% of 25,000 confirmed coronavirus deaths in country.

In March, Peru ordered cremation of all coronavirus victims, one of strictest rules in region, in order to prevent people from being infected by contact with bodies. Or countries including Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile and Ecuor allowed burials, and at end of April, Peru softened rule somewhat, allowing funerals, but with more than five mourners.

Still, many families complained that hospitals were insisting on cremation anyway.

When Cochachín died May 24, García said, hospital officials said cremation was mandatory to avoid infection of living.

Her mor's ashes were delivered several weeks later. García remains convinced that she could have buried her mor as she wanted, in a white coffin.

She said she dreams regularly of her mor bemoaning her cremation.

Along with cremations, burials have continued, with nearly 200 deaths daily due to a rate of infection that continues to be among world's highest. Many families must hunt down spots in ecomical and far-flung cemeteries on outskirts of Lima.

Rolando Yarlequé has put urn holding ashes of his wife, María Carmen, 68, next to his bed in tiny room two rented toger in City of God neighborhood in souast Lima.

Yarlequé, a 62-year-old evangelical Christian, says he is saving up $200 he will need to bury her ashes someday because he believes it will be necessary for her resurrection.

“One day earth will give back de,'' he says, ‘’And Bible doesn't talk about cremation."