JEDDAH, 2 December 2007 — Jeddah’s 15 principal cemeteries will soon be connected to a computer network linked to all of the city’s government and private hospitals.
According to a municipality official, this will facilitate the process of burial. Khalid Aqil, deputy mayor for services, said that the municipality is working to increase private participation in the burial sector.
“So far, the municipality has signed eight operation contracts,” he said.
Contractors will work on developing cemeteries by rebuilding the walls, renewing the rooms where the dead are washed, providing halls for receiving condolences, and establishing the computer network.
Concerning the scarcity of burial spaces, Aqil said that cemeteries in Jeddah and its surrounding areas were more than adequate.
“The average annual number of deaths in Jeddah is about 8,000 while the annual capacity is sufficient for 23,000,” he explained.
The problem, he said, is that people only know a few cemeteries out of the 15 that are in Jeddah. There are, in addition, 100 other cemeteries in the areas surrounding Jeddah and all are open for burial at any time, he added.
Now, he said, after linking major cemeteries through a computer network and validating the burial documents, it would be much easier to find the appropriate cemetery.
He said that the municipality had distributed to all hospitals burial applications and booklets with addresses, phone numbers and locations of all cemeteries in order to ease the procedure until the computer network is established.
Adil Al-Marwani, head of the preparations department of the municipality said that 10 cemeteries had so far been renewed and the others would be finished by the end of this year.
“The municipality has hired a number of new monitoring officials to supervise the workflow over the cemeteries around Jeddah,” he said.
He added that all monitoring officials and cemetery workers would undergo continuous training to gain necessary knowledge and experience in washing the deceased and burying them according to Islamic laws.
