Four military cemeteries in Ypres will receive €1.13 million from the Flemish Region to complete the restoration of deteriorating boundary walls and improve safety.
The work will cover Railway Dugouts Burial Ground and Bedford House Cemetery in Zillebeke, White House Cemetery in Sint-Jan, and Belgian Battery Corner Cemetery in Ypres.
Some 10,000 soldiers are buried in these four cemeteries alone, according to the Commonwealth War Grave Commission.
Restoration works will include repairing the foundations, repointing the walls, and replacing damaged bricks and coping stones.
The project is expected to cost about €1.7 million in total. The Flemish Government, through the Heritage Agency, will fund 66% of that amount.
Asylum British Cemetery, Ypres, later concentrated into Bedford House Cemetery. Established in the grounds of a mental hospital (the Hospice du Sacre Coeur) a little West of the railway station, between the Poperinghe road and the railway
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which manages the cemeteries, will carry out the works and cover the remaining costs.
Flanders' funding was announced by regional Heritage Minister Ben Weyts (N-VA) .
Weyts said people from around the world lost their lives in the Westhoek during the First World War.
He said the Flemish Region wants to continue conveying the message of "Never again war", including by preserving the war cemeteries in the Westhoek as quiet witnesses to the suffering that unfolded in Flanders Fields.
