Intense psychological pressure from Jeddah Amana Company is being cited for the recent untimely death of four citizens in Al-Ruwais District here. Sheikh Radat Bin Shaneef Al-Jadaani, a local, reports said, fell victim to this pressure earlier this week after the company threatened to cut off electricity from Al-Ruwais homes if owners didn't submit title deeds to transfer the ownership of their properties. A group called “For the Sake of Jeddah Residents” recently called on citizens of Al-Ruwais District and offered their condolences on the death of Al-Jadaani. Another Al-Ruwais resident, Hamid Ahmad Hassan Bakdam, recently died after learning that the Jeddah Amana Company had assessed the value of his big house at mere SR317,000 whereas three Saudi families are his tenants and the two shops on the ground floor are also rented. “The annual estimated rent Bakdam makes from his apartments and shops is over SR100,000. How could the value of such a property be estimated at SR317,000 when it fetches SR100,000 a year in rents? He had a heart attack and unfortunately never recovered from it,” Emad Al-Jahdali, Bakdam's neighbor, said. Another resident Abdullah Nuwaiji Al-Jahdali told the Saudi Gazette that his father died before the end of last Shawwal (September). “My father died after reading in the newspapers that Jeddah Amana Company would cut off electricity as a way to put pressure on residents and make them submit the title deeds of their properties,” he said. Abdullah said his father was also distraught at the way newspapers spoke about Al-Ruwais District's removal and how they also tried to put pressure on residents to sell. “My father believed that newspapers were truthful and honest in reporting on the developments in Al-Ruwais District,” he said. Abdullah also lost his elder sister Aisha, who raised him, his four brothers and seven sisters. Aisha died just a month before the death of his father. “My father and my sister were very worried about our future and what we would do if the company took our house from us. Where would we live, my siblings and me? We're four families and rents are high in Jeddah. Is it fair that the company wants us to move to Khaleef Salman and Asfan, which are remote places, and leave a downtown area where we were born and raised?” Abdullah said his father refused to submit the title deed to the company before his death and vowed that neither he nor his siblings would ever submit the title deed no matter how much money Jeddah Amana Company offered them. __
