Quebec City Muslims now have a place to bury dead, after years of trying

Starting Sunday, Muslims in the Quebec City area won't have travel to Laval or overseas to bury their loved ones.

TheLpine Cloutier/Athos funeral home inSaint-Augustin-de-Desmaures, about 25 kilometres west of downtown Quebec City, is now offering burial grounds for local Muslims.

There will be 500 places reserved for Muslims at the Les Jardins du Qubec cemetery, near the St. Lawrence River. The space was inaugurated Sunday morning.

"We want to serve everyone that lives in Quebec City, that's our goal," saidMlijade Rodrigue,who works at the funeral home.

• Quebec City mayor vows to give Muslims a place to bury dead
• Full coverage of the Quebec City mosque attack

Rodriguetold CBC News their project was in the works before the January shooting at a Quebec City mosquethat claimed the lives of six men.

The bodies of five of the six victims had to be returned to their countriesof origin.The sixth victim wasburied in Laval, which is home to the only Muslim-run cemetery in the province.

"Having a cemetery in the Quebec City region is much more convenient and much more appropriate than going to Montreal, or repatriating bodies to their home countries,"said Nadir Belkhiter, spokesperson for Algerian community association of Quebec.

A nearby place to bury family

Rodrigue said they checkedwith leaders in the Muslim community for specifics, such as their special burial traditions, andadapted one of their funeral homes to be able to perform the necessary rituals.

She said while there are a lot of Muslims settling in Quebec City, some who have been living there for decades and still have nowhere to bury their loved ones.

"If you live here you want to be buried here, obviously," she said.

This project is different from one that has been in the works since 2016 inSaint-Apollinaire, which is about 40 kilometres southwest of Quebec City and spearheaded by theCentre culturel islamique de Qubec, the mosque which was the site of the shooting.

The centre has been in discussions with theHarmoniafuneral home to buy land to establish a Muslim-run cemetery there. Some of its members are distancing themselves from theSaint-Augustin-de-Desmaurescemetery, which they don't consider a true Muslim burial ground.

BoufeldjaBenabdallah, co-founder of the centre, said the key difference is that while in a non-Muslim cemeteryplots are rented, in a Muslim cemeterythey are owned forever.

But because the Saint-Apollinaire landa wooded area on the outskirts of townhas to be rezoned, it is subject to the referendum process.

• Muslim cemetery project in Quebec town will be put to a referendum

That referendum is slated to take place next weekend.Only about 62 people, those who live or work a certain distance from the proposed site, are allowed to vote.

Benabdallahsaid he is"confident in people's judgment" and believes the project will pass.

In an interview with Radio-Canada, he said it would be a "terrible shock" if the openness that was displayed after the Januaryshooting was erased.