ABUJA, Nigeria—Since the start of the year, Zimbabwe’s oldest cemetery has been extremely busy. Gravediggers are having to dig over a dozen graves on a daily basis at the Warren Hills Cemetery in the capital, Harare, as the number of deaths from coronavirus continue to grow at disturbing rates.
“The number of daily burials at the cemetery has almost quadrupled since the beginning of 2021,” Stephen Bwalya, a commercial taxi driver who lives close to the cemetery, told The Daily Beast. “Most of the victims died from coronavirus.”
In the last two months, Zimbabwe has witnessed a drastic increase in the number of coronavirus infections and deaths. About 35,000 cases and more than 1,300 deaths have so far been confirmed—a huge spike from the 14,000 infections and 369 deaths recorded on New Year’s Day.
