Whānau with loved ones buried at an Upper Hutt cemetery are upset and furious someone has moved dozens of vases of flowers from headstones. A picture posted to Facebook by the Upper Hutt City Council showed the vases had been moved away from headstones and arranged around a nearby seat at Akatārawa Cemetery. "Unfortunately, someone has has visited Akatārawa Cemetery overnight and removed all the flowers and vases from a section of the Monumental 4 area," the council said.
"We're very disappointed this has happened and are asking anyone who has loved ones in rows 31-40 of Monumental 4 to please come by and help us reunite them with their flowers." People could check the Akatārawa cemetery database for their locations, it said. Karen Thomson's grandmother is buried in that area, and told RNZ she could not understand why someone had done such a thing.
"Thankfully we had just taken our flower cups home to organise a new arrangement for her headstone, otherwise we no doubt would have lost her new flowers too. "It just belies belief that someone thought this was a fun thing to do," she said. "It just makes us a bit reluctant to put flowers on her grave again at this point, which is really sad because she loved them so much.
" Akatārawa cemetery was a "beautiful place", said Thomson. "I hate seeing something like this happen there." Comments on the council's Facebook post ranged from anger to offers of help to put the flowers back.
"So angry, my grandmother is buried in that area," said one. "Absolutely disgusting and disrespectful behaviour," said another. Many were alerting their whānau and arranging to visit the cemetery and claim their flowers.
The council told RNZ police were investigating. Police have been approached for comment..
