Villagers have been told to stop growing vegetables on graves in a Romanian cemetery.

The council in Telciu had given permission for the plots to be cultivated, even though the human remains hadn't been removed.

But they changed their minds after a complaint from a visiting American Rabbi who was born in the village.

However, gardeners have been told they can continue growing the current potato crop until autumn when it will be harvested.

Rabbi Kahn, who is president of the US-Romanian committee for the preservation of Jewish cemeteries, said their ancestors must have been turning in their graves.

He said: "I returned to my homeland to discover these villagers had turned our ancestral cemetery into a potato plantation.

"Mine and many of the villagers' ancestors must have been turning in their graves as the sacred earth was moved aside to make way for spuds."

The local council had given permission to the cemetery's keeper Maria Popa to use the 60-grave cemetery how she saw fit.

She decided to allow villagers who didn't have any land of their own to grow potatoes there.