This year’s unusually cold weather in Saudi Arabia has brought the plight of the poor into public notice. Abeer Mishkhas, writing for Arab News, takes a look at the deaths and misery that have resulted, not just from the cold, but from hunger as well. The stereotype of Saudis, so wealthy that they have gold-plated toilet fixtures, is put to the lie by the simple fact of the extent of poverty. Definitely worth reading.

How Could Such Things Happen in Saudi Arabia?
abeermishkhas@arabnews.com

Four thousand families in Arar live in what looks like shipping containers. The walls are made of wood and the roof is a piece of metal. The houses are open to the weather, whatever it is. When it is hot, the metal roof makes the houses as hot as ovens and when it rains, there are puddles everywhere in the house. Of course, the latest cold wave to hit the country has made things even worse. The people have had to live in actual freezing temperatures made worse by their flimsy houses. This is not an imaginary story; it is a real one that was carried by Al-Hayat newspaper. Needless to say, it shocked many people in Saudi Arabia.

The newspaper also carried interviews with some of the residents. The complaints were quite simple and quite tragic. The people deserve decent lives and they are being forced to live in substandard accommodation with no schools, no medical clinics, and an intermittent electrical supply. Most of the people survive on donations and charity.

How is it that we have known nothing of this bleak situation and those who have to endure it? The story is grim and it took on an extra dose of bitter reality when the same paper published the news of the death of a 15- year-old girl as a result of a recent cold wave in the Kingdom. The girl was asleep in her bed, but the freezing cold seeped through the walls and the metal roof and she froze to death. Masahal — the girl’s name — was not the first victim of the cold in Saudi Arabia, but her death came as a shock because it revealed that poverty levels in her small village were beyond belief, at least for the majority of relatively affluent city dwellers.

The fact that 4,000 families are living in such horrible circumstances makes one wonder about what is being done by officials and the society to narrow the sharp contrast between extreme riches in cities and extreme poverty in some remote villages.

In a country that is considered rich by any standard, there is absolutely no excuse for such situations. In a society that congratulates itself on its piety, it is incredible to hear of people dying of cold or hunger.
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