Following efforts to address the numbers of evacuees and improve their living conditions, it was announced Tuesday that displaced persons housed at the Ahad Al-Masareha Evacuee Camp are to be moved to a nearby site with 1,600 tents. According to regional governor Mut'ib Al-Shalhoub, the new site, which has fully-furnished tents in a purpose-built zone, has been funded by the Ministry of Finance. Over 1,150 of the tents are already finished. Meanwhile, Civil Defense in Jizan has said that 240 villages have been evacuated since the beginning of the security threat in the Al-Khubah region, with the zone between Al-Khubah town and Ahad Al-Masareha now entirely free of inhabitants. “It's a military operation zone,” said Civil Defense head Hamoud Al-Hassani. “The emergency evacuation began with villages in the line of fire whose residents were taken to the 50-tent Al-Baydha Camp, and then they were moved on to the camp in the west of Ahad Al-Masareha when military forces moved into the area.” Hotels and furnished apartments in the towns of Samta, Abu Ureish, Jizan and Sabya, meanwhile, are reportedly fully occupied, while some camp evacuees say that one tent is not enough for some large families. “We decided to move into a school building,” said Ali Hazazi of his 12-member family. Other evacuees complain that they are still to receive aid money promised to them. “We haven't been able to get any even though we were evacuated over a month and a half ago,” said Muhammad Al-Salami. “The system needs to be more flexible”. The new site contains open spaces, recreational areas, mosques and individual bathroom facilities, along with a host of other services offered by health and education authorities. Al-Shalhoub moved to dispel concerns over “selectivity” during the process of finding accommodation for evacuees. “A new system will be in place to ensure that only genuine evacuees are given accommodation at the camps, and former errors will be avoided,” he said. “There will be no discrimination between evacuees. All services will be provided to Saudi residents in border areas as well as foreigners of other nationalities, and this will serve to ease the sufferings of persons living away from home.” Regional education authorities also announced Tuesday that new schools at the camp would soon be ready to open. The fully equipped schools will be operational once teachers have been appointed. 30 families with imprisoned providers A survey conducted at the camp in Ahad Al-Masareha has revealed that 30 families were lacking a breadwinner because of imprisonment. The Prisoner Care Committee in Jizan, which carried out the survey, said that they were working with prison authorities to provide the families with the urgent support and funds they needed. “We are consulting with the Women's Department at the Care Committee and the National Commercial Bank's Social Responsibility Department,” said Prisoner Care Committee president Ali-Al-Zakri. “We are also organizing hand-out tours to distribute large quantities of food, clothes and blankets and other urgent requirements.”
