JEDDAH, 20 September 2007 — Residents of south Jeddah recently expressed their resentment at the way cemeteries in that part of the city are being neglected by local authorities. This is especially the case with the Umm Saleh Cemetery where large numbers of burials take place.
A lack of attention and maintenance has caused the cemetery’s walls to crumble. The neglect has also encouraged overstayers to take advantage of the situation and frequent the cemetery to illegally bury their dead.
Journalists from Al-Madinah newspaper visited the cemetery recently to be met by a poorly maintained wall waiting to collapse any minute. The cemetery is located close to an industrial area and a lot of vehicles, mainly heavy trucks, regularly pass by.
The Umm Saleh Cemetery is old and has clearly not been taken care of. However, families that live close by take the time out to rebuild the wall as best as possible and keep the place neat and tidy.
Many Saudi residents of the Al-Khumra district in the south of Jeddah said that the cemeteries should be taken care of and that the municipality should protect the dignity of the dead.
Hamid Al-Saeed, a local Saudi, told Al-Madinah that illegal overstayers are known to live in the cemetery and that they enter through broken parts of the wall at night. “It’s not surprising that they take advantage of the lack of security to bury their dead in the graveyard. Why should they fear anything? There is no control or observation,” he said.
Al-Saeed urged the authorities to pay a visit to the cemetery. “The cemetery needs maintaining and the authorities need to observe it to stop violations from continuing,” he added.
Abdul Mo’ti Al-Jada’ani, the janitor at the cemetery, said the graveyard was established some 80 years ago. “There are huge numbers of people buried here. Many residents in the southern part of Jeddah still use it. Sadly, this graveyard has not received necessary attention in terms of utilities and maintenance,” he said.
He added that the municipality should rebuild the wall to prevent illegal overstayers from coming in. “A mosque and a place to prepare the dead body for burial would help in making the cemetery like other well-maintained ones in Jeddah,” Al-Jada’ani said.
Muhammad Rashad, a worker in the industrial area of south Jeddah, agreed. “The low walls, which in some areas are falling apart, need fixing urgently,” he said.
There are plans to develop the graveyard. Muhammad Bahjat Hijazi, an official at the municipality, told Al-Madinah newspaper that the walls of the cemetery would soon be rebuilt.
The municipality has established seven new cemeteries in the last six months as part of a plan to ease the load on the city’s existing seven cemeteries, which are full and rarely accept new funerals.
In the past two years, Arabic newspapers have carried stories of people finding it difficult to bury loved ones at cemeteries in Jeddah. The cemeteries in the city have become so full that people have been known to travel to nearby villages to bury their dead.
Hijazi said the municipality has allocated an emergency budget of SR12 million to expand and maintain existing cemeteries in addition to establishing new ones.
