The floods that swept through Jeddah and its suburbs back in November killed at least 122 people. Searches continue for 37 more, reported missing by their families and friends. The psychological toll is high, as well. Arab News reports that post-traumatic stress, depression, and ‘aquaphobia’ are being discovered in the affected populations.
Residents of afflicted areas have now been given permission to return to their homes, Saudi Gazette reports. It does not say, however, whether their residence in illegal developments will be permitted for long.
The Saudi Human Rights Commission is promising to publish its report soon. This report, according to Saudi Gazette/Okaz, will focus on the effects, not the causes of the flooding.
Among the causes, the paper also reports, were illegal construction of residential compounds and, essentially, suburban villages. These buildings were put up in flood plains which should never have had any substantial construction on them. The Shoura Council reports that tens of thousands of square meters of government-owned land were criminally allocated by government officials for this construction.
Shoura report exposes big encroachment on govt land
Fares Al-QahtaniRIYADH – A recent Shoura Council report shows that 216 sq. km of Jeddah consists of unplanned areas – created largely by criminals who have exploited loopholes in the system and preyed on unsuspecting buyers.
This size of unplanned areas rose from 3.3 million sq. meters in the year 2000 to 29.2 million sq. meters in 2008 due to illegal encroachment on government land, the report said.
The report shows how criminals have used temporary ownership titles, that still have to be approved by the court, to sell this land to the public.
Many buyers have also not waited for final and official approval of their land purchase from the court before purchasing. The court only grants its final approval for purchase after the approval of many government offices.
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Those officials are in for it now, though, the paper says:
Corrupt notaries to face full wrath of the law, says Al-Issa
Hazim Al-MutairiRIYADH – The Minister of Justice has said that officials guilty of granting fake land title deeds would face the full wrath of the law regardless of whether they had resigned or retired from their posts.
Minister Muhammad Al-Issa noted that some notaries had resigned of their own accord, but warned that justice would be pursued whether they were still in office or not.
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January:07:2010 - 09:35
Ali al-Ahmed says what Shoura members wouldn’t dare to say:
http://www.saudiinfocus.com/en/forum/showthread.php?t=20970
“This has brought to light yet another fact of life in Saudi Arabia: most citizens are unable to buy a home. The percentage of adult Saudis who do not own homes is around 80% – in sharp contrast to other Gulf countries such as Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE, where home ownership rates exceed 80%, thanks to government programmes.
The cause of the low home ownership is the high price of land. This may seem surprising in such a huge country with a relatively small population, but it results from land grabs by members of the ruling family. Many Saudi citizens woke up one day to find that the land they had either inherited or paid good money for has been taken over by a member of the Al Saud. The land deed that the citizen holds becomes worthless and no court will take up the issue. If you complain too much, you will end up in prison.
We Saudis have witnessed massive land seizures across that bare country where fences are erected by princes to enclose hundreds of square kilometres. Jeddah is infamous for land grabs by members of the ruling family – land that is then sold to citizens looking to build a home, without the required planning and infrastructure such as sewage, electricity, water and phone.”
January:07:2010 - 12:02
They are now allowed to go home? Many have been “living in affected areas” the whole time.
This disaster has created somewhat of a social revolution. Primarily because of cell phone cameras etc. and massive postings on Youtube and Facebook (apparently in record numbers) the press began to properly cover what everyone else already knew. Youth from Jeddah were joined from some other from around the kingdom and began relief efforts- working together BOTH genders they were among the first into many of the affected areas.
This disaster generated an unprecedented grass-roots response, and has made it hard for the facts to stay hidden- though I think officially it is minimized. I don’t for one minute believe that death toll- based on pictures and footage and reports I read I can’t imagine how it is so low. But some areas afflicted were primarily undocumented people who probably did not report their dead or their missing.
I hope it leads to a real solution for drainage and sewage rather than window dressing this time. But people are really watching to see what is done. Personally I have not been pleased at the seemingly near complete lack of coverage in the international press.