FIRES have been lit in Belfast City Cemetery over unmarked graves, it has emerged.
Fire engines were called to the cemetery last weekend to put out the flames from the fires.
Young people had stacked a large amount of pallets and set them alight, causing a wide area of damage to the grounds which is the site of numerous unmarked graves.
Belfast City Cemetery in the past has suffered from vandalism, most controversially when ten headstones at the Jewish plot were smashed and pushed over in 2021, but other gravestones have been routinely damaged.
A Belfast City Council spokesperson said: “NIFRS was called to Belfast City Cemetery on Saturday 5 March 2022 to attend to an incident where pallets had been set on fire. The fire was put out and the site has since been cleared.
"Belfast Council is committed to working with the PSNI and the local community to try to address issues of anti-social behaviour in all our open spaces.”
Sinn Féin Belfast City Councillor Steven Corr said: “The good weather is not an excuse for people to set fires. It’s extremely disheartening to see people burning pallets, as the fires were set over people's graves. Those who set those fires may not know, but there are people buried underneath where the fires were lit.
"There are hundreds of graves in the City Cemetery which don’t have headstones, often because families couldn’t afford one, but there are registered burials on that spot. I would urge any young people who are using the graveyard to hang out in, set fires and drink to cease doing so immediately and to think about how distressing it can be for families to know that fires were set upon the graves of their loved ones.
"We are working with young people in the area and we are stressing to them that behaviour like this is anti-community; it disrespects the families of people who have been laid to rest.”
