Abid Khazandar The death of six-year-old Lama Al-Rouqi who fell into an abandoned artesian well in Tabuk and the existence of a large number of such wells across the Kingdom in general is an indication of our lack of public conscience. I still recall my visit to a city in the Northern Border region when I was working with the Ministry of Agriculture 50 years ago. I was accompanied by an American expert. While we were walking with a local resident along a street in the city's souk, he told us to move to the right side of the street. When I asked him why, the man said that there was an abandoned well there. The American asked me to translate what the local resident had said. When I did it, the American asked to see the well. When he saw that the well had no protective fence, he shouted: “My goodness!” and then told me to stop everything I was doing and focus my efforts on securing the well. We then went to the emir of the region and explained to him the urgency of building a fence around the well. But his reply was that no one had ever made such a demand before because everyone knew the exact spot of the well. I asked: “Even foreigners?” He replied: “Of course, they are always accompanied by local residents.” We left his office empty-handed. My American friend then said: “This is criminal negligence.” I agreed with him. After all these years, there are still abandoned wells in Saudi Arabia. In a recent statement, Saeed Al-Doair, Director of Water Resources Development at the Ministry of Water and Electricity, said: “The ministry's offices and inspectors in charge of encroachments have so far spotted 130,000 abandoned and unlicensed wells in various regions of the Kingdom.” He indicated that these included both ordinary and artesian wells. Al-Doair disclosed that efforts are underway to find the owners of these wells and to force them to secure any well they own at their own personal expense. “In case we fail to find the owners, the ministry will level the wells at its own expense,” he added. Apart from abandoned wells, there are uncovered sewage tanks left by building owners. We often read stories about children falling into such septic tanks. In the case of Lama and similar other cases, the owner of the well or the sewage tank should be forced to pay blood money to the families of the victims, as this is manslaughter.
