More than 1,000 Sattahip residents dug up the graves of Sawang Rojthummasathan graveyard internees without families to clean bones and prepare them for a Buddhist cremation ceremony.
Sattahip Mayor and Sawang Rojthummasathan Foundation President Narong Bunbancherdsri led the May 16 cleaning of the skulls and bones of 1,021 people who have no family members to care for their graves. The bones were cleaned with tea and placed into burners for the May 21 cremation.
More than 70 Buddhist and charitable organizations throughout the country participated in the event, which included believers bowing before the corpses and praying to spirits. It also gave some who didn’t realize they had family in the Soi Bongkot graveyard an opportunity to properly bury their relatives.
One of those was Chuay Yondee, 65, who retrieved the bones of his daughter Sroisangwaan Yindee who died at age 35. He took the bones back to their home in Nonudom May 20.
