Nearly six months after the tragic murder of six men in a Quebec City mosque, the capitol region has inaugurated its first Muslim cemetery.
A portion of the Quebec Gardens cemetery, owned by the Lepine Cloutier/Athos funeral home in St-Augustin-de-Desmaures, is dedicated to deceased Muslims.
The plot contains 500 lots, which will be reserved for the area’s Muslims.
Funeral home president Yvan Rodrigue said in April he had been planning this project for months before the attack.
The cemetery opened without the participation of the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec, which has been attempting to get its own project off the ground.
Centre secretary Mohamed Kesri recently told Le Soleil newspaper that the new cemetery doesn’t meet the needs of the Islamic community.
Kesri said many of Quebec City’s Muslims would prefer their loved ones be buried in a place owned by the community where they can be sure all the burial customs are followed.