Jeddah sees increase in number of lost children

There has been a sharp increase in the number of lost children in Jeddah. “We have something like 20 lost children under the age of 10,” Rami Al-Ghamidi, director of the Al-Birr Charity Society in Jeddah, told Arab News.

“Some of them are Asian, while others are of African descent,” he said.

“They were found lost in several neighborhoods that are known for being unsafe, like Ghaleel, Karantinah, and Al-Sabeel, all illegal expat strongholds,” he said.

He explained that the center was able to return more than 30 lost children to their families in the first half of the year.

The parents had come forward to reclaim their children after learning that they were being kept at the center.

“We place announcements in the local papers, where we give descriptions of the lost children,” he said.

“Nevertheless, the center still has children who have been here for years because nobody came to claim them.

“We refer the cases of kids who have been with us for more than five years to the Interior Ministry, which then gives these kids names and naturalizes them as Saudi citizens,” he added.

The society on Saturday urged the identification of a child who had been at the center for more than two years. “We suspect that the child is of African descent. He was almost four years old when he was found and we couldn’t get any information about him,” the society said. Arab News had published a photo of the child two years ago.