The National Guard has been deployed to flood-stricken areas in Jeddah to maintain public security and provide humanitarian aid. Saudi Air Force personnel were also deployed in Quwaizah for security reasons. They patrol the district from 6:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M., leaving the night shift for Jeddah police. Security in the flood-hit districts has been beefed up with the delpoyment of additional security personnel from different government departments, said Lt. Muhammad Al-Ghamdi, Chief of Jeddah Police.Relief aid Part of storm relief aid, each displaced family of two will receive SR2,400 a week starting Sunday as ordered by Prince Misha'l Bin Majed, Governor of Jeddah, a city official said. The amount increases according to the number of family members. Over 200 displaced families and 360 individuals will be housed in furnished apartments for a week, said Ali Al-Qahtani, head of services department at the Jeddah Mayoralty, Sunday. “But the stay period could be extended depending on the improvement of the situation,” he said. Relief committees have started disbursing cash money to victims, he said. Private hospitals have been authorized to treat any displaced family member, if necessary, at the expense of the Ministry of Health, Al-Qahtani said.Investigation begins Meanwhile, the Jeddah Governorate has formed 33 field committees to attend to the needs of residents of flood-hit areas across Jeddah and to gather information on the catastrophe that claimed over 107 lives, a senior official said Sunday. At least 30 districts were badly affected by the floods, mostly in south and east Jeddah. The Ministry of Municipality and Rural Affairs is studying the “possibility” of transferring the responsibility of Jeddah drainage projects from the Jeddah Mayoralty to the central administration of development projects which successfully executed drainage projects at the holy sites in Makkah. In a meeting Sunday Prince Masha'l Bin Majed, Governor of Jeddah, urged the city government offices to get the situation under control in the city and neighboring areas.Dissatifaction of citizens Citizens in eastern Jeddah whose houses collapsed in last week's floods have voiced their dissatisfaction with the way the shelter committee is treating them. They have allegedly said that the committee closed its door in their faces and that the owners of the furnished flats to which they were sent refused to receive them. Abdul Rahman Bukhari whose house was swept away in the floods in Quwaizah claimed that he waited for more than two days for the shelter committee to assign him and his family to a furnished flat, but that in the end the committee had refused to house him and closed its door in his face. “We thought that the committee was seriously dealing with our problem, but we ended by being disappointed as nothing came from it. Believe it or not, in the end we found that the committee did not know where to send us. Members of the committee told us about a location in Abruq Al-Rughama which distributes food, but when we reached the area we did not find any signs indicating where the distribution point might be. As a result we wasted a lot of time looking for the location. And when we finally reached the place, we were surprised to find two companies distributing light meals, such as biscuits, cake and water.” Mansour Osman, a father of 12, said with a broken heart that he could not find any place to house his family and was thus obliged to return to his flood damaged house in Quwaizah. “We spent the night in the open as the floods had swept away everything in the house and mud had filled the water tank,” he said. Osman said he went to the shelter center to ask for aid but to his dismay he did not receive any help. He complained about the cruel and inhuman treatment of the committee's members and called upon the responsible authorities to replace the committee with qualified members who know how to deal with the public properly. “They should realize that they are dealing with human beings, with people who have lost their homes,” he said. He alleged that some individuals were even exploiting flood victims by selling them aid application forms for SR5 though such forms are free.
