Saudi Gazette report MAKKAH — Gharouf, a village in Khulais governorate 90 km north of Jeddah, lacks most basic services. The sufferings of its inhabitants aggravate during rain when the only road that links them with the outside world is cut off. The residents are dismayed at the negligence by the authorities toward their village. They say the municipality and the Ministry of Transportation turned a deaf ear to demands for action to end their suffering. Residents of Gharouf stressed the need to pay attention to their villages and to provide them with basic amenities, similar to the neighboring villages, to help them limit the frequency of their commute to the cities. Hindi Bin Saed Al-Khudairi complained about the poor state of infrastructure in the village. He said the majority of the streets are rickety without asphalt, sidewalks and lighting. He said any visitor who comes in the village would be shocked at the lack of basic amenities. Al-Khudairi called on Khulais Municipality to look at their sufferings as a result of the missing services and act quickly to mitigate them. He wondered what happened to a project of paving the roads that the Ministry of Transport had included in its priorities more than 13 years ago. Ali Al-Salami said the service wagon passed by their village without leaving any trace. The village did not witness any development projects for decades, making the area unfit to live in. He pointed out that many people had abandoned their houses in the village and moved to Jeddah or Makkah in search of a better life. He said he could not understand how the competent authorities could ignore such grave situation. Al-Salami said internal migration is one of the biggest obstacles to development in any country. He pointed out that paying attention to rural areas and investing development projects contribute to lessening urban migration that place a heavy burden on cities and rapidly exhaust their resources.