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Memorial to people with HIV/AIDS unveiled in Svetlahorsk

A memorial to people with HIV/AIDS was unveiled on December 1 in Svetlahorsk, a southeastern Belarusian city with a population of 75,000 where HIV rates are among the highest in the country.

This is the first memorial in Belarus that is dedicated to carriers of the virus and those who died of AIDS-related complications.

Put up at a local Orthodox church, the granite post features a text, "Remember, live, be beside," and a cross with a band that symbolize solidarity with people living with HIV.

At the unveiling ceremony, priest Alyaksandr Kisel called for mercy for HIV-positive people and said that the Orthodox Christian church would always fight against the spread of the virus.

Kanstantsin Pyatrowski, deputy head of the Svetlahorsk District Executive Committee`s ideology department, said that Svetlahorsk accounts for 25 percent of all known HIV cases in Belarus. "More than 600 people are no longer with us," he said.

As many as 2,595 people in Svetlahorsk are diagnosed with HIV, more than half of all known cases in the region.