Mufti Shawqi Allam - REUTERS
CAIRO 11 April 2020: In a bid to end the controversy over the refusal of burying the deceased COVID-19 patients by some villagers in Egypt, Grand Mufti of Egypt Shawqi Allam issued a fatwa (Islamic decision) prohibiting this act.
“It is impermissible for anyone to deprive any human of this divine right of burial,” the Fatwa says, adding that bullying against the COVID-19 patients is religiously forbidden.
The Fatwa also prohibited the gatherings that could be staged by the relatives of the deceased people, Allam said.
“The demagogic method of objection to the burial of coronavirus martyrs is religiously rejected,” Allam said, adding that those who died from the coronavirus are considered “martyrs.” He called for accelerating the burial of the victims because it is their right.
Locals of Shubra al-Bahw village, in Dakahlia [ Egypt’s Delta], protested the burial of a female doctor who died of Coronavirus as they feared of infection with the virus if she was buried at the village cemeteries.
However, the security forces dispersed their protest by using tear gas bombs to bury the 64-year-old doctor.
The Health Ministry announced on Friday that 95 new coronavirus cases were detected; all of them Egyptians, upping the total number of confirmed cases to 1,794, Spokesman for the Health Ministry Khaled Megahed said in a statement.
Seventeen patients, all of them Egyptians, died from the virus over the past 24 hours, raising the death toll to 135, the spokesman said. Up to 30% of them died before going to hospitals, he added.
Moreover, 36 new Egyptian patients were discharged from hospitals after receiving necessary medical care, raising the number of recovered cases to 384 so far, the spokesman said.
As yet, the global cases infected with the virus reached more than 1.7 million people and 103,521 deaths were reported, while the recovered cases rose to 382,049. On March 10, 2020, the virus was announced a global pandemic by the World Health Organization.
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