Eight people in Indonesia who flouted mask restrictions were reportedly ordered to dig graves for people who died of COVID-19 as punishment.
The Jakarta Post reported that local authorities in the country’s East Java province handed down the unique sentence to eight people who were not wearing face masks. Sunyono, head of the region’s Cerme district, said that the punishment would serve as a deterrent.
“There are only three available gravediggers at the moment, so I thought I might as well put these people to work with them,” he told Indonesian news website Tribun News. The group reportedly dug graves in a public cemetery located in the village of Ngabetan.
Sunyono said that because there have been increasing infections in the area, officials have had to increase protocols.
“Hopefully, this can create a deterrent effect against violations,” he said, noting that the eight people only dug the graves and did not participate in the actual burials of the virus-afflicted bodies.
Indonesia has had more than 220,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and more than 8,800 deaths since the pandemic first began, according to a count by Johns Hopkins University.
