ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq — The business of death has become lucrative at the heart of the Kurdistan Region capital city of Erbil, as individuals who decades ago received plots of land for a symbolic price from the municipality now sell them for large sums of money, a crisis driving many people to bury their loved ones far from the city center.

The act of burying loved ones next to each other is a deeply ingrained cultural ritual and practice. Many Erbilians prefer burying loved ones at Sheikh Ahmed and Maamal Qeer cemeteries, the two largest cemeteries situated downtown the capital city, and the only two cemeteries where one will have to pay to have a spot for burial.

Hajji Tariq Abdulrahman, 73, has regularly been visiting his wife’s tomb for the past four years ever since she passed away.  Abdulrehman’s wife is buried on a plot of land that Abdulrehman bought for a high price a long time ago. The father of six, Abdulrahman, has left a will to his children that he wants to be buried right next to their mother when he dies. 

“I have left a will that I want to be buried right next to her,” Abdulrahman told The New Region while bursting into tears. 

In addition to Sheikh Ahmed and Maamal Qeer cemeteries, where the price of burial plots – 50 and 100 meters square -  range from five to 10 million Iraqi dinars ($3,400-$6,800), there are 16 other cemeteries across Erbil city’s outlying areas. Burial is free at the rest of the 16 other cemeteries, but only two of them, Kasnazan and Kanashkin cemeteries, have burial spaces.  

“In the past, the government distributed plots of land at the cemeteries for a symbolic amount of money. But this process stopped a long time ago, and the government no longer provides lands for families,” Zhyar Jalal, in charge of the Environmental Protection Department at the Erbil Central Municipality, told The New Region. “That is why the price of land plots has gone up.”

Jalal said burial plots in Erbil were distributed from the 80s of the last century until 2010.

The New Region has learned from relevant local authorities that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has planned to build a new cemetery in Erbil’s outlying district of Bnaslawa where burial plots will be given free of charge.

The high price of land plots at the Maamal Qeer and Sheikh Ahmed cemeteries has become a source of nuisance to Erbil locals. 

“The prices vary,” Amir Muhsin, a local of Erbil, said. “Some people sell the land for 5,000,000 dinars and others for 10,000,000 dinars. It all depends on the conscience of the seller.”

Nadir Kani Kurdaiy, a religious cleric in Erbil, said the business of death and profiting off it is religiously prohibited, and Muslims will have to avoid it.

Despite the price hikes, some unknown people destroy fences built around burial plots at the Sheikh Ahmed and Maamal Qeer cemeteries and steal them.

“Some low-life people break the fences, and steal them,” Ismael Khalid, another local said.