JEDDAH, 9 March 2006 — After his father died a month ago, Saudi middle-school teacher Mohammed Al-Shareef said he faced a great deal of difficulties in finding a burial plot. “All the cemeteries were full,” he said.
He told Arab News yesterday he had to drive all day, from cemetery to cemetery, frantically trying to find a place to lay his father’s body to rest. He found one cemetery keeper willing to bury the body — for a fee of SR10,000. Then Al-Shareef found himself haggling over the price of burying his father. Finally, the deal was settled for SR7,000.
In response to problems like these, the Jeddah Municipality yesterday allocated an emergency budget of SR12 million to expand and maintain the existing seven cemeteries in the city, according to an official statement from the municipality.
The local government’s response came after public complaints that cemeteries are refusing to accept bodies due to the lack of burial space. Between 30 and 100 bodies are buried on average within the city limits every day.
On Tuesday, Al-Madinah newspaper published a picture of a sign at Al-Faisaliah cemetery saying the graveyard cannot accept any more bodies except those of infants. The sign was taken down yesterday. When Arab News approached the cemetery keeper asking about burial requirements, he said that the cemetery was full. When asked about the sign that was hanging near the gate the day before, he blanched: “What sign? There was never a sign there.”
Other cemeteries such as Al-Asad and Bani Malik have not been accepting bodies since last year.
A municipality source, who requested anonymity, told Arab News that due to the lack of cemeteries, some people were burying their dead in empty lands in the Harazat area, 40 km east of Jeddah. Those illegal burials could cause major problems in the future, especially if the area gets inhabited, he said.
Municipal spokesman Ahmad Al-Ghamdi said the city was working to expand the existing cemeteries. Until expansions are made, he suggested people bury their dead in cemeteries in nearby towns, such as Thuwal, 90 km away.
Almost half of all burials in Jeddah take place at Umana Hawa cemetery. Al-Ghamdi said that so far most cemeteries have been accepting emergency burials for those who do not have a vehicle to transport their deceased. People with vehicles are usually directed to other available cemeteries.
He said Al-Faisaliah cemetery used to receive from 20 to 25 bodies per day, but now bodies are redirected to other cemeteries in the suburbs of Jeddah until the expansion project is completed. He did not say when the municipality would complete the cemetery-expansion project.
