A FRENCH WOMAN who was attending her brother’s funeral discovered the grave of her 42-year-old son in the same cemetery – but she had never even been informed that he had died.

After her brother’s funeral Josiane Vermeersch and her family were leaving the cemetery, in Hellemmes near Lille, when one of the group noticed a makeshift wooden gravestone bearing the name and date of birth of Vermeersch’s son.

Speaking to La Voix du Nord newspaper, the man’s father said:

Josiane collapsed. She buries her brother and finds her kid in a grave near him. It’s unthinkable.

Their son, Oliver Langlet, was confirmed dead by the local council. Records said he had died in early July from natural causes. He was the father of one child.

Vermeersch said that she tried to contact her son in the days leading up to the funeral, but thought he had been ignoring her because of a fight they had had.

She told news channel I-Tele: “Someone hasn’t done their job. I demand explanations”.

Vermeersch said that she refused to believe that, in the age of digital communications, proper efforts had been made to contact the family. The family had lived in the vicinity of the cemetery for decades.