Santo Domingo.- Santo Domingo’s historic Municipal Cemetery on Independence Av. will be renovated to attract tourists who visit the city, so they can walk among the resting places of famous writers and poets, and heroes of the Caribbean country’s two wars of independence, EFE reports.

This cemetery built in 1824 during Haiti’s occupation of what was then the Spanish side of the island has been ravaged by decades of neglect, with crumbled graves and barely legible headstones, despite the workers’ efforts to keep it clean for the handful of tourists or students who are willing to take the tour, especially on historical dates.

The cemetery which opened August 29, 1824, located in the Ciudad Nueva sector, boasts striking sculptures among white marble mausoleums and, according to historians, date from the 19th and early 20th century, and brought from  Italy.

Closed in 1965 and declared a Historical Heritage in 1987, the cemetery is also home to the remains of historians, artists and heroes of the "April Revolution" of 1965, when the U.S. occupation led to the death of thousands of Dominicans.