Egypt’s prosecutor orders arresting 23 suspects over preventing burying COVID-19 victim

CAIRO – 13 April 2020: Some 23 suspects were arrested Sunday night as per the Egyptian prosecutor’s orders over attempting to prevent the burial of a doctor who died of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in Dakahlia governorate on April 11.

The suspects will be accused of mass gathering in violation to the COVID-19 precautionary measures, resistance of the authorities, disrupting public transportation and blocking the road.

After knowing of the female doctor's death and that the family was planning to bury her, residents of Shubra al-Bahw village, Dakahlia [Egypt’s Delta], gathered to protest the burial of the doctor, 64, as they feared getting infected with the virus if she was buried at the village cemeteries. The security forces dispersed the locals and buried the doctor.

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.

“The demagogic way of objection to the burial of coronavirus martyrs is religiously rejected,” Allam said, adding that those who died of the coronavirus are considered “martyrs.” He also called for accelerating the burial of the victims because it is their right.

According to the state-owned newspaper al-Akhbar, the doctor’s son said to the prosecutor during the investigations that his mother was suffering of diabetes, high blood pressure, kidney failure, and a blood clot in one of her toes; accordingly, she used to visit a private clinic regularly in February and March. Then she needed to be completely hospitalized.

The female doctor began to show symptoms of COVID-19, turned out to be positive when tested and was quarantined in a hospital in Ismailia governorate until her death.

“On the day following my mother’s death, and after taking all the necessary and precautionary measures, we went to the cemetery with an ambulance and a specialized team from the hospital to bury her but we were surprised with the people gathering and protesting ,” the doctor’s son said in his testimonial.

He added that the people surrounded them and the ambulance, hit on it and even started to throw stones at them. “They set fire to tires and wood to cut our road and damaged the ambulance, we had to go back and wait for the police backup forces to bury my mother,” the son added.