MAKKAH — A video showing a number of orphans rioting inside the Ministry of Social Affairs' social education home in Makkah to protest substandard services is fake, a senior official at the ministry has said. Abdullah Al-Muaiqil, undersecretary at the ministry's Makkah Province branch, said some residents had showed their anger at a decision to transfer them from the home by damaging furniture. They wanted to be allowed to remain at the home, but according to the ministry's rules any orphan who reached the age of 18 should be transferred to the general care division. Al-Muaiqil said none of the orphans who prefer to remain in the education home would be forced out but instead would be accommodated in houses especially rented for them in Makkah. The ministry, on the other hand, said the incident on a video clip that surfaced in social media websites showing a young man beating a child with Down's syndrome did not take place in any of its social protection homes. “The incident took place in a mosque in the Safwa town in the Eastern Province,” it added. Both the attacker and the victim were people with special needs, the ministry said.
