All major Saudi newspapers published front-page headlines with photos of the events in Jizan over the past two weeks.
It began with a power failure that left the region devastated for many days. Shopkeepers complained that their frozen and refrigerated foodstuffs were rotting. Citizens and residents had no electricity in their homes. And fingers were being pointed at the Ministry of Electricity and Water, particularly the new minister, Dr. Ghazi Al-Gosaibi.
The minister made a statement about the power failure, apologizing to the residents of Jizan about the incident and saying that what had happened was an “embarrassing thing that was not acceptable either for the authorities or the people of Saudi Arabia.”
Less than a week later, floods hit Jizan and the water level reached its highest in the history of the region. The floods trapped hundreds of people, demolished some 20 homes, caused damage to another 40 houses, and swept cars away. Thousands of hectares of land were completely buried under water. A week later, we got used to reading of police officers or divers removing dead bodies swept along by the floods or of people who had been trapped in their vehicles. The news is still all over Saudi Arabian newspapers.
However, several important questions loom in my mind after reading about the suffering of the people of Jizan: Where are the calls for helping our brother Muslims by the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO)? Where are the efforts of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth? Why are our philanthropic organizations mute about the whole thing?
Jizan is drowning and its people and residents are suffering, and there is not a single call from any major Islamic philanthropic organization in our country to help them. I do not know what I would have done if I was a native of Jizan and I knew that my region was struck by disasters and that the money my fellow citizens were paying for humanitarian relief was flying over my head to people outside of my country — to Afghans, Palestinians, and Iraqis. It seems that Jizanis are not worthy of humanitarian relief from our Islamic and philanthropic organizations. How else can we explain the silence of our organizations?
What if these same disasters had occurred anywhere else in the Kingdom, in richer and more influential regions such as Riyadh, the Eastern Province, Qasim, the Makkah region and so forth. Would the silence be the same?
What is stranger still is that our television is silent too. I am sure that if these floods had occurred anywhere else in the Islamic world, and over a period of two weeks, we would have seen a live telethon on Saudi TV asking people to give generously to help their brother Muslims there.
May God help you people of Jizan. Not only have you been unfortunate to be struck by a major power outage because the Ministry of Electricity and Water has failed you, but you have also been unfortunate to be struck by natural disasters.
I ask the officials in major Islamic organizations and philanthropic societies in our country to fear God and face up to their Islamic and national duties.
