An area of a 200 year-old Berlin cemetery will be reserved as a graveyard for up to 80 lesbians, so “the lesbian community can live together in the afterlife.”

The Safia association, a group for elderly lesbians, was given use of a 400-square-metre area of the Lutheran Georgen Parochial cemetery for 30 years, in exchange for landscaping the area and being responsible for its upkeep.

“We don’t have to pay any rent, but we had to invest a lot of money to turn that part of the cemetery into a usable burial ground again,” said a group representative.

The group said it had created a burial area as a space “where life and death connect, distinctive forms of cemetery culture can develop and where the lesbian community can live together in the afterlife.”

The group commissioned a landscaping company to build winding sand paths and has reserved spaces for ashes in urns and burials.

The Lesbian and Gay Association of Berlin commented that the cemetery “increases the diversity of opportunities and is a nice opportunity for those lesbian women who want to be buried among other lesbians.”

Volker Jastrzembski, from Berlin’s Lutheran church, said the deal is part of the church’s push to “revitalise” the grounds by offering burial space to outside groups, adding that the church is hoping offer similar deals to Muslim groups.

The burial area is to be inaugurated on Sunday.