Imam is injured on refugee mission to Lesbos

Qari Mohammed Bilal went to Lesbos, Greece, to give a proper Islamic burial for dead refugees/children. he helped build a cemetery there for Muslims - but was involved in a car accident just hours before his flight. He was then flown over to the UK, now he's recovering in Salford Royal Hospital.

Bilal helped create cemetery for Muslims after seeing 70 bodies in morgue

AN imam from Oldham is recovering in hospital after an accident on the Greek island of Lesbos, where he helped set up a Muslim cemetery for refugees.

Qari Mohammed Bilal (36), founder and chairman of the Greengate Trust in Glodwick, was returning a car he had borrowed when it was hit by an oncoming, speeding car last Friday, just hours before his flight back to Manchester.

His left leg was dislocated from his hip and he was taken to hospital in Greece, where doctors put his leg back in place.

However, they could offer no further treatment so the local community back in Oldham pooled their resources and raised the money for an air ambulance to bring him back from Lesbos to Salford Royal Hospital.

He is currently being treated for fractures to his left hip, pelvis and leg and is waiting to be transferred to the Royal Oldham Hospital.

Mr Bilal has travelled to Greece before with the Greengate Trust, which has organised the refugee relief effort from Oldham.

When he flew out again, two weeks ago, he saw 70 bodies of refugees in a container.

He believes the bodies had been left there for around nine months and had subsequently decomposed.

He met some of the parents of dead children who had been trying — with no success — to get the bodies released from the morgue in order to have them buried.

Mr Bilal said: “I couldn’t get to sleep thinking of those 70 bodies. It was the most heartbreaking thing I have seen in my life.

“Even now I can remember every single body. The experience is something you can’t put into words.

“The bodies were just lying there, one on top of the other — babies, women and men. The smell was the worst. I can still smell that smell.

“Someone had to do it. It had to be done.”

After putting pressure on the local mayor and the police, he was able to get the bodies released.

Prayer

He washed and shrouded them in the Islamic custom before reading out a prayer and burying them in what is believed to be the first Muslim cemetery on Lesbos, which is still being built.

The last four bodies were buried on Wednesday — 18 had been flown back to their countries and 52 were buried in the new cemetery. Around half of them, Mr Bilal said, were children aged between one and three.

He added: “For the first time in my life I have seen parents happy after the burial of their loved ones and thanking me.

“They had finally put them to rest. They were happy they can carry on with their lives.”