The Social Affairs Department in Jizan has opened an investigation into the allegations leveled by the brother who kept his two sisters locked in a small room for ten years. The two girls were kept in a small dingy room with no windows and only a small ventilation hole high up near the ceiling. The brother, identified by the authorities only by the initials A.M. says he had no choice but to keep his sisters under lock and key. “It was only to protect them from the evils of this world since they had a psychiatric illness from childhood,” he told authorities in a statement. The man allegedly said in the enquires conducted by the police that last year he had applied to the Social Affairs Department to take care of his sisters and to provide them with treatment, but that the officials did not do anything. Salem Basahi, Director of Social Affairs in Jizan, said he would assign the responsible personnel at the Comprehensive Rehabilitation Center in Jizan to look into its records to probe the authenticity of the allegations raised by the man against the department. “We will verify his allegations although we cannot find any excuse for what he did to his sisters throughout all those years. This poses a crucial question: If it is true that he approached the department last year and did not receive a suitable response, then where was he all this time? Why did he wait for 9 years to approach Social Affairs?” “It should also be borne in mind that Social Affairs is not a proper place for receiving patients suffering from psychiatric diseases. Instead he should have taken his sisters to the Health Affairs Administration since their cases fall within its responsibility,” he added. Basahi pointed out that the Ministry of Social Affairs is looking after more than 16,000 cases of disabled children and other social cases in Jizan who live with their families and that all care is extended to them. Such children receive financial aid totaling more than 120 million per year. “In fact, the aid offered to the disabled will be doubled effective April 1st according to the directives of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Abdullah,” he said. Matter Hadi Mehzeri, father of the two girls, who is lying in bed suffering from partial paralysis said his two daughters have been suffering from a psychiatric disease for more than ten years pointing out that he could not take care of them because of his age and illness and thus he had assigned his older son the task of looking after them. He said that his son has never maltreated or humiliated the two girls, adding, “Instead he has been very generous with them responding to all their demands. I have never opposed him for locking them up because he knows their interests and that of the family better than me.” He confirmed that Social Affairs did not come to take the two girls although it had approved the application submitted by his son a year ago. One of the relatives of the two sisters said that their brother took them in 2000 when his father's disability made it impossible for him to look after them after their mother who suffered from a psychological disorder was forced to abandon the girls and return to her family in Yemen leaving her two daughters with their ailing father. Then with the consent of their father their brother took them and registered them at Al-Rayan primary school, but the two girls refused to pursue their education. When it became clear that the two girls had developed psychological problems, their brother locked them up in a small room where they have been kept for ten years. Recent events taking place in Jizan show that the region, more than ever, needs a house or shelter for the elderly as well as one for girls since there are no such facilities in the densely populated area, which obliges the authorities to refer such cases to Asir.
