By Anas Al-Yousef
JEDDAH — The municipal authorities finally decided to halt construction on the site of a cemetery in Al-Baghdadiyah district of Jeddah.
A source said residents of the neighborhood were upset about the municipality’s decision to allow an investor turn the site of an old cemetery into a kindergarten.
“People protested against the decision until the municipality complied. A religious scholar issued an edict declaring the bodies interred in the cemetery should be moved to another location before any construction takes place on the site,” said the source.
He said the scholar asked the authorities to stop the construction work for the planned kindergarten at the site until the remains of the dead are safely moved to a new location.
The source said many people have reported seeing remnants of human bodies at the site.
“People who lived in the area for many years said everyone knew this piece of land was a cemetery. There was no fence around it, but pebbles demarcated the area that was the cemetery,” said the source.
Khalid Al-Ghamdi, a representative of the investor in the kindergarten, said the investor was highly disappointed about the municipality’s decision to halt construction at the site.
“He had obtained permission to build on the piece of land legally,” he said.
Al-Ghamdi said the construction crew spotted remnants of dead bodies when they dug four meters deep.
The investor, however, gave up on the idea of building a kindergarten at the site after the backlash from the public.
“We won the bid when the municipality auctioned off the plot and we began construction immediately. But we were then deterred by the people of the neighborhood protesting against our action. The people got the police involved and we went back to the municipality asking what was wrong,” said Al-Ghamdi.
He added that the municipality had told them to continue the construction work and that they had not broken any law for the police to intervene.
“We continued the work as quietly and as a carefully as we could. We built three stories and we never dug more than two meters deep into the ground. Then we moved on to building the water cisterns and we had to dig in more than four meters,” said Al-Ghamdi.
He added once the construction team dug in four meters into the ground, remnants of bodies began to rise up.
“We immediately stopped the work and reported the matter to the municipality. The municipality in turn informed the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs. The ministry formed a committee to look into the matter and make sure the skeletal remains found at the site were of people buried there,” said Al-Ghamdi.
He said the ministry came back to them saying they can continue working on the project, but they should stay away from the northwestern part of the plot where bodies were buried.
“We could not comply with the ministry’s instructions and we had to halt construction for a year. My client deserves to be compensated for his losses. He deserves to be granted another piece of land,” said Al-Ghamdi.
