RIYADH, 8 March 2008 — The Ministry of Health announced yesterday that permission for burial of the dead should come from the respective foreign missions in case of expatriates and from the members of the families for Saudi nationals.
“The new rule is to streamline the process of burial of dead bodies since the ministry has undertaken the washing and transporting the dead bodies to the graveyard to be free of charge,” Dr. Saeed Al-Ghamdi, director general of forensic medicine at the ministry said.
He added that the ministry has been doing it as a service but insisted that the rule is to do away with any irregularities in the clearance of dead bodies for burial.
He also pointed out that the embassy should seek the permission for burial from the authorities only after the mission obtains security clearance from the area police.
Last year the Riyadh morgue received 417 bodies, 303 of them were males. The deaths included 61 men who died in road and industrial accidents.
