MAKKAH: Jeddah woke up many times recently with unidentified bodies found on its streets. This phenomenon is not new, as it has happened many times.
Two years back, an unknown body of a woman living in the Kingdom illegally was found near her country’s consulate building. After an investigation, police found no criminal motives and an autopsy revealed that the woman died of natural causes.
Her friends had washed the body and wrapped it in a white sheet before placing it in a bag and leaving it in front of the consulate.
Two months ago, Jeddah police discovered a body of an unknown African man in Al-Jamea district in south Jeddah inside a barrel.
Doctors did not find any criminal motives behind the death and the conclusion they reached was that the man died of natural causes and his friends or relatives had to dump the body fearing accountability.
These discoveries raised concerns among Saudis who were not used to hearing such news of discovering bodies. Sometimes bodies are found in late stages of decomposition and some half eaten by wild animals. Overstayers cannot obtain burial permits from the authorities when their dependents die in the Kingdom.
In the past, the number of overstayers was small and to get around this problem they used to bury their dead in any empty piece of land in the neighborhood. Sometimes they would bury them inside their homes. Now that the number has increased dramatically and the government has launched massive projects to fix the underdeveloped areas, the overstayers have been left with no choice but to wash the body and then throw them on the street or outside the city.
In June 2006, an Indonesian driver dumped the body of his wife who died from natural causes in a street corner in the Al-Bahr neighborhood of Madinah because he feared he would be arrested and punished by the authorities for helping her overstay in the Kingdom, officials said.
The police found the body in a sitting position. A patrol team approached the woman suspecting there was something amiss after they found her sitting next to a building for an unusually long period of time. The officials realized that the woman was dead when the body fell down.
Police immediately launched an investigation to ascertain the identity of the woman and the circumstances that led to her death. A few hours prior to finding the body, the patrol team had seen an Asian expatriate sitting in the same location. It later transpired that the woman was married to an Indonesian driver and had come to the Kingdom on an Umrah visa. Police took the Indonesian into custody.
The man panicked when his wife died because he was afraid that he would be penalized for helping her remain in the country illegally, he told the police during questioning.
The man dressed up his wife’s body, covered it in an abaya and took it to the street. He thought that the police patrol would find the body and make arrangements for burial. As police were examining the body, the distraught husband watched from a distance.
In April of 2007, a body of a 45-year-old Indonesian woman was found in a dumpster close to the Indonesian Consulate in Jeddah.
According to an initial police autopsy, the woman died as a result of natural causes. Municipal cleaners found the body wrapped in a piece of cloth.
Police said this is the third body found in similar circumstances that year.
A month earlier, the body of a 30-year-old Indonesian woman, thought to be a maid, was found in a dumpster behind a major shopping center in the Al-Safa district of Jeddah.
A man who had come to throw rubbish in the orange dumpster found the woman’s body slumped inside and immediately called the police.
Mahmoud Baytar, Al-Hejla neighborhood mayor in Makkah, does not deny that this problem exists. He attributed this to their fear of being held accountable by police and then they might get deported.
He said: “Each community has a leader. Both the legal and illegal refer to him when someone in the community dies. The leader then will contact the officials for burial if the person died of natural causes. We conducted awareness campaign with the residents of the neighborhood to raise awareness on many issues including this one.”
Maj. Abdul Muhsin Al-Mayman, official spokesman of Makkah police, said that police faced some cases with bodies of men and women found in different locations. Some of these bodies he said were properly washed and covered and were ready for burial.
He said: “They throw these bodies out so the authorities will take care of the burial and without taking any action against the overstayers who sheltered them.”
He said the overstayers inspect the area first before they throw the body to make sure that they are not watched.
He said these bodies are dumped in the middle of the night and they make sure people would see the body the next morning. That is why they make sure it is dumped on a major street or a residential area.
