Volunteers needed to clean up Karachi graves

 
A video, 'Cemetery of the lost tribe' was made about the Karachi Jewish cemetery

A project to clean up the Jewish cemetery of Karachi has launched a call for volunteers.

 F. Bhenkhald, who Tweets as @Jew_Pakistani, is looking for people to help him undertake the work. He blames 'government neglect' for the state of the cemetery.

Funds to maintain the cemetery have dried up. Six families live on the site, including the caretaker. A recent report revealed that there had been repeated attempts to take over the land, and that the cemetery residents themselves had paid towards building a boundary wall.

 There are almost 5,000 graves in the cemetery, now overrun by nettles and thorns. In its heyday the Jewish community numbered about 3,000 Jews. In the cemetery is the grave of Solomon David, an official of the Karachi Municipal Corporation, who also built the Magain Shalome synagogue in Saddar. The last burial was in the 1980s.

According to F Bhenkhald, there are up to 200 elderly Jews remaining in Karachi with their carers.