Evacuees in the Jizan region received the King's order Wednesday to construct 10,000 housing units for them as a noble gesture from the King of humanity. The King has ordered the completion of the housing complex with public services of schools, health clinics, and mosques within a year. The government evacuated thousands from the border and wants to establish a broad no-go zone on either side of the porous frontier with Yemen to stop both militants and smugglers from crossing. The evacuees said that they felt that the King's outreach for them is sincere. “He is always out there for Jizan,” one evacuee at the camp said, remembering the King's visit to Jizan in tough times when the Rift Valley Fever epidemic hit the region. “And now the King is coming back at another difficult time to us with his generous order,” said Yousef Majrashi. King Abdullah, then Crown Prince, visited the disease-stricken region immediately upon his return from an official visit to Europe in 2000. He inspected the region with no facemask, one evacuee from a border village remembered. Awaji Majrashi said, “A better life has now opened up for me and my family.” The Majrashi family was evacuated from the Qamar village in Khubah last month. In his previous visit to Jizan in 2006, the King said that the region “has fallen behind on development for reasons out-of-control,” vowing that the region would have a brighter future with a massive infrastructure including a new port, railway, university, express road links and an expansion of residential areas as well as fresh real estate projects. During his 2006 visit, the King announced a SR111 billion economic city in Jizan. Jamila Sharahili and her five children fled their home after officials came to her village near the Yemeni border, urging her to escape from a war she knows little about. “I couldn't sleep because of the shelling,” said the woman in her 50s, sitting in a tent in an evacuee camp set up by the authorities about 35 km from the border. “I didn't know where to go, but the Civil Defense told me everything would be fine. So I packed my most valuable belongings and made it here.” Sharahili's family joined thousands of people who have been forced to leave the area since the Kingdom launched a military offensive last month against armed infiltrators from Yemen, after they briefly seized some Saudi territory. Muhammad Bin Nasser Bin Abdul Aziz, Emir of the densely populated Jizan region, estimates that 15,000 people have been evacuated so far. Sharahili's new temporary home is in the small town of Ahad Al-Masareha, where the authorities have erected more than 700 tents, each housing up to 12 people and equipped with air conditioning and electricity. Children play on dusty ground, while adults watch television in large tents. “We came here after we could hear loud shelling and authorities asked us to leave,” said teenager Hanan from the village of Nakhshousha. Her sister Juma said, “We have everything but I miss my school.” Temporary schools have opened at the camp, along with a clinic staffed by 14 doctors. Clerics come to the camp in the evening for prayers and religious lectures. “We don't know when they can go back but hopefully it will be soon,” said the Jizan Emir. Abdu Al-Ahmad Hazzazi, in his 20s, said he had gone first to another village after fleeing his home in the border area, but the authorities then moved him further from the front. “They've brought me here because it wasn't safe,” he said. The small region of Jizan has some 1.3 million inhabitants. “We stayed first in the camp but luckily we have now been moved to an apartment. Civil Defense is paying the bill,” said Muhammad Abdullah Mighrishi. Security forces are thick on the ground. Police at checkpoints on all main roads search some vehicles and passengers, focusing on traffic leaving Jizan. “I don't know when the situation will improve, I don't even know the reason for this war,” Sharahili said in her tent as her children played outside. “We just hope we can go back quickly.”
