RIYADH, 14 December 2005 — If accidentally stepping into an old, unmarked grave and crunching through the ribcage of an old skeleton sounds like something that would only happen in a horror movie, then perhaps you should talk to Saud ibn Muammar.
This is exactly what the resident of Al-Jubailiya said happened to him as he walked through a long-neglected cemetery near a main road of this town near Riyadh.
“It’s a bad feeling when you walk through some empty land near the main road and all of a sudden the earth collapse and you find your legs inside a grave,” said Saud, who went on to describe the terrible feeling of getting one’s foot caught in a dead man’s chest.
It is perhaps not a coincidence that the municipality of Riyadh is considering some much-needed upkeep of area cemeteries, as reported by the local daily Al-Riyadh.
The city of Riyadh has already constructed walls to demarcate its burial grounds, which can be difficult to spot in Muslim communities where grave markers and other décor are considered idolatrous.
Now, municipal officials would like to expand the capital city’s initiative to protect burial ground from people, and vice versa, to outlying communities.
The cemetery where Muammar had his macabre experience is located in the Al-Jubaileya area, north of the country’s capital. Muammar says that over the years the burial ground has fallen into neglect, despite numerous promises of upkeep by local officials.
“A few years ago,” said Muammar, “there was a project to connect the village with a road. The cemetery was divided into two sections, the north and the south section.” One portion, he said, even became an unofficial trash dump.
A local imam, Abdul Majeed ibn Muammar, said that townspeople once built a big wall to protect the cemetery, but that the wall is mostly damaged and only a small part of it remains. “The Riyadh municipality should put this cemetery in their priority list,” said the imam.
