JEDDAH, 1 December 2007 — The phenomenon of missing persons is not something that Saudi Arabia is immune to. According to a report published in a local Arabic newspaper recently, there were 3,285 cases of missing persons in the Kingdom in 2003.

Many of these missing-person cases involve the mentally ill, the report said citing interviews with a number of relatives.

Abdurrahman Al-Saeed, who has a mentally retarded brother that disappeared in 2006, said: “I reported the disappearance to the authorities but I didn’t get any reply from them after waiting for so long. I decided to put his picture in the newspaper and I received many phone calls. I found him the day after the notice was published. He was extremely afraid since he was not used to mingling with people. I also found with him some money because people thought he was a beggar.”

Naif Al-Harbi, who lives in Majma, a town northeast of Riyadh, said: “My brother, who is 37 years old, suffers from a psychological illness. My mother was overprotective of him. She used to lock him in his room.”

Al-Harbi said his brother used to accompany them to family gatherings but under observation. “Once, we were in Riyadh attending a family ceremony. We got busy and didn’t notice that he had left the party and we couldn’t find him. I placed an advertisement in the newspaper, and we found him a month later in a bad condition. His psychological condition got worse.”

Rajis Al-Dousary said her brother had been missing for five months and still had hopes that he would be found, dead or alive.

“My brother, who is 30 years old, went out in the morning as usual to go to work in the military and he never came back. After reporting to the authorities and an extensive search, only his car has been found in the suburbs of Wadi Al-Dawaser where we live. I believe that he either got lost in the mountains or died in a cave,” Al-Dousary said.

Fahtha Al-Anesi, a mother of two daughters, has been missing her husband since 2004.

“My husband went out in the morning to buy some groceries from a nearby market and never came back,” she said.

“I reported the disappearance to the police after three days. Before he disappeared, he was absent-minded all the time. I believe he had problems at work. After three years, I have started to believe he might have had an accident and died.”