ROME - Around 2,000 coffins in the capital have now been awaiting burial for over three months. The Italian Federation of Funerary Excellence has filed a complaint at Rome’s public prosecutors office, accusing the Municipal Environmental Company (AMA) of failure of office, but still no change.

  The fight for action is being led by Democratic Party (PD) Deputy Andrea Romano, who has not been able to give his son a dignified burial, who died February 22. On Thursday Romano wrote on Twitter, “today it is two months that my son is no longer with his mum, his brothers, with me. Two months that we have not been able to bury him: AMA doesn’t give burial times worthy of a civilised city. Rather, it doesn’t give any time at all. Your shame will never be great enough.”

  Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi publicly apologised to Romano in a letter, saying, “what has happened to Andrea Romano’s family and to many others is unjustifiable, I am with them all. I can only imagine the torment and terrible pain they are experiencing. I have appealed to AMA who have assured me that they are working towards a solution to give rest to citizens in this time of coronavirus. 

  AMA announced on Saturday that they had streamlined the bureaucratic process for cremation, which had been greatly complicated by the pandemic. However since 2017, when there were more resources and funding, nothing has changed. Lazio is in fact the only region that has no specific laws regulating the funerary sector.

  AMA has spoken a lot about the difficulties during this period, explaining how the wait for cremation, which is usually around 15 days, can rise to 25 days when the death rate rises by 10 percent - during the second wave the death rate rose by over 30 percent.

  However, Alessandro Moresco, a councillor from the committee of the Federation of Funeral Directors (FENIOF), has denied what AMA has claimed. He explained that there was only “a rise in 10 percent in deaths from Covid, that could have been managed if they had undergone the necessary works in the last four years.”

  Moresco continued that, “they are lacking cemetery plots and those that they do have are in a shameful condition, so much so that the local authority demands the signing of a disclaimer form in which the citizens must accept the conditions in which they find them. We let the clients see the plots, but many don’t. At the moment of burial, the relatives of the deceased refuse the plots, and the coffins end up in deposit or in a crematorium.”

  The councillor continued that in the last few days, “a few coffins brought in a hearse to Prima Porta, with the relatives behind, were turned away because it was full and sent to Verano. A disgrace. The employees, desperate, no longer know what to say to the relatives.”

  Matteo Piantedosi, the Prefect of Rome, has urged for immediate measure to be taken by the city and AMA, announcing an emergency plan that provides for an increase of 9,000 cremations in the next 12 months, adding to the 15,000 pre-Covid, with the transfer outside the city of 170 coffins a week. This will be on top of the 350-400 cremations done every seven days.

  AMA, after the 16 dismissals from the last management has announced several new recruitments, though Gianluca Fiori, from the Association of Funeral Directors, has said that “they haven’t moved a muscle, they only act now for the newspapers. But AMA is deliberately slowing down. It’s a form of blackmail to the city to get more staff. It’s a game of power while the bodies are waiting.”

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