MAKKAH, 28 September 2007 — There are reasons to suspect that every foreigner coming to Makkah in ihram is not a pilgrim. Several poor foreigners are lured by the prospects of the profitable trade of begging in the holy city, particularly in the month of Ramadan.

In most cases, these beggars are not ready to leave the Kingdom after the expiry of their visas and eventually end up in the detention centers run by the Anti-Beggary Department. Authorities have occasionally found entire families, including small children, earning a lot of money through this loathsome trade.

The matter becomes horrifying when some gangs resort to the mutilation of healthy children in order to make them effective beggars. It is suspected that there are criminal gangs who buy or hire children from poor countries to force them to beg in the holy cities.

In a visit to the Misfala district in Makkah, Arab News found a 60-year-old Arab man in a small park not far from the Anti-Beggary Department office. His artificial leg had been removed so that passersby could see clearly the crude stump of his bare amputated leg.

“I am hungry. I came here with my daughter from a neighboring country on the first day of Ramadan. A few days after our arrival I lost my way. I don’t know where my daughter is. I don’t know what to do without her. Can you help this poor old man,” he replied stretching his hand apparently for some money.

I assured him that I could help him find the missing daughter by taking him to the nearest police station. On hearing the word “police” the man shrunk back saying it was no use and he could manage without the police. “I am very tired and cannot move an inch,” he said.

When I asked him why he was sitting in the hot sun, he said he would move to the shade when the heat was too much. Then I left him and watched him from a distance. I found him drawing the attention of passersby and receiving money from them.

A detained beggar at the Makkah Anti-Beggary Department jail, Ibrahim Qaid of Yemeni nationality, said he and several others crossed the mountainous Saudi-Yemen border with the help of a smuggler. The smuggler took them to Makkah for a huge fee. “Unfortunately, two days after our arrival in Makkah I was arrested while begging,” he said. He is now awaiting deportation.

Mansour Al-Hazmi, director of the Anti-Beggary Department in Makkah, said that about 98 percent of beggars were foreigners of various nationalities. Some of them are legal residents while others are overstayers.

“There are several families who send their children for begging. There are also organized groups who bring in children from poor countries and disfigure them for begging,” Al-Hazmi said, adding that begging usually peaks in Ramadan — a time when people are usually more charitable.

Muhammad Shafi, chairman of the Joint Committee to Combat Begging, said: “The begging gangs are very active in the holy month because it is a time when they are able to earn huge sums. There are organized networks of gangs that arrange for beggars to enter the Kingdom. They also plan their activities, including mutilating them in order to evoke the pity of onlookers.”

The streets of the holy city during Ramadan are filled with vendors one wouldn’t normally see other times. The elderly can be seen hawking home-cooked food, clothes, toys or assorted gifts to supplement their pensions during a potential seasonal windfall in extra funds.

“Zamzam for sale!” shouted out Fahd Abdullah, a 27-year-old unemployed Saudi university graduate amid bottles filled with water from the sacred well.

“I spend six hours a day selling Zamzam water,” said Abdullah, who also offers to deliver water to the homes or temporary lodging of pilgrims and locals. “I start after Asr prayer and carry on until isha.”

Employed people looking to make extra cash are also often attracted to hawking during Ramadan. Teachers, bank employees and others are often found either selling products or working as taxi drivers.

Turki Al-Ahmary, 22, was standing on a street corner close to the Grand Mosque with a large container of hot water, milk and teabags.

“I’m bored sitting at home without work, so I decided to do something useful this season,” said Al-Ahmary, a Saudi, who said he earns up to SR350 a day during Ramadan as a tea vendor. “I liked the idea of selling tea. There is no shame in this job because it generates good profit and I can support myself financially.”

Ahmad Al-Harbi sits beside Al-Ahmary selling homemade food and appetizers. “I earn good money to help me increase my family income,” he said. “By the end of the holy month I will have earned around SR7,000. I begin work after Isha prayer and carry on until about 3 a.m.,” he said. “My mother played a huge role in encouraging me; she makes food for me and is the one who prepares vegetables and packs them in jars.”

During iftar (the breaking of the fast), people in Hijaz love drinking subia (a malt beverage made from raisins or bread) and sherbet.

Abu Saleh, 45, is retired and is considered an expert in preparing subia. He learned how to make the drink from his father 10 years ago.

“Sitting at home retired makes me ill,” he said. “Once you’re used to work you can’t stop working. The worst enemy for retired people is free time. The holy month is the best time to sell subia. It’s a popular drink.”

Saleh said that he works from Asr prayer until Iftar and earns around SR300 a day.

Abu Jihad, an elderly Saudi man, sells dates in front of the Grand Mosque, where demand is high — dates are considered a traditional breakfasting food. “It requires experience to differentiate between various types of dates,” he said.

“The officer approached them at an apartment in Jeddah. One of the men asked for a large sum of money and claimed he could increase the amount through magic,” said a police spokesman.

“Our officer said he would bring SR500,000. The magician said he could multiply it to SR5 million. The officer managed to convince them that they needed to come to Makkah and that they would get the money there,” said the spokesman.

The magicians arrived in Makkah and were arrested. They were then transferred to the Al-Kakeeya police center for further questioning.

In the second case, Makkah police arrested a Nigerian magician who would target sick women and say he could do supernatural things to cure them.

“Police found SR3,000 in his possession and a phonebook full of names and numbers of women that he had targeted,” said the police spokesman. The man was transferred to the Al-Kakeeya police station for further questioning.

“People should be careful. Most of these black magicians are fraudsters,” said Maj. Abdul Muhsin Al-Mayman of the Makkah police. “If they could make money multiply then they would have done it for themselves instead of demanding money from people.”

MAKKAH, 28 September 2007 — There are reasons to suspect that every foreigner coming to Makkah in ihram is not a pilgrim. Several poor foreigners are lured by the prospects of the profitable trade of begging in the holy city, particularly in the month of Ramadan.

In most cases, these beggars are not ready to leave the Kingdom after the expiry of their visas and eventually end up in the detention centers run by the Anti-Beggary Department. Authorities have occasionally found entire families, including small children, earning a lot of money through this loathsome trade.

The matter becomes horrifying when some gangs resort to the mutilation of healthy children in order to make them effective beggars. It is suspected that there are criminal gangs who buy or hire children from poor countries to force them to beg in the holy cities.

In a visit to the Misfala district in Makkah, Arab News found a 60-year-old Arab man in a small park not far from the Anti-Beggary Department office. His artificial leg had been removed so that passersby could see clearly the crude stump of his bare amputated leg.

“I am hungry. I came here with my daughter from a neighboring country on the first day of Ramadan. A few days after our arrival I lost my way. I don’t know where my daughter is. I don’t know what to do without her. Can you help this poor old man,” he replied stretching his hand apparently for some money.

I assured him that I could help him find the missing daughter by taking him to the nearest police station. On hearing the word “police” the man shrunk back saying it was no use and he could manage without the police. “I am very tired and cannot move an inch,” he said.

When I asked him why he was sitting in the hot sun, he said he would move to the shade when the heat was too much. Then I left him and watched him from a distance. I found him drawing the attention of passersby and receiving money from them.

A detained beggar at the Makkah Anti-Beggary Department jail, Ibrahim Qaid of Yemeni nationality, said he and several others crossed the mountainous Saudi-Yemen border with the help of a smuggler. The smuggler took them to Makkah for a huge fee. “Unfortunately, two days after our arrival in Makkah I was arrested while begging,” he said. He is now awaiting deportation.

Mansour Al-Hazmi, director of the Anti-Beggary Department in Makkah, said that about 98 percent of beggars were foreigners of various nationalities. Some of them are legal residents while others are overstayers.

“There are several families who send their children for begging. There are also organized groups who bring in children from poor countries and disfigure them for begging,” Al-Hazmi said, adding that begging usually peaks in Ramadan — a time when people are usually more charitable.

Muhammad Shafi, chairman of the Joint Committee to Combat Begging, said: “The begging gangs are very active in the holy month because it is a time when they are able to earn huge sums. There are organized networks of gangs that arrange for beggars to enter the Kingdom. They also plan their activities, including mutilating them in order to evoke the pity of onlookers.”

JEDDAH, 27 September 2007 — They’ve become so many that they’re literally a classic sight during Ramadan — peddlers at roadside bazaars offering up sweets, juices and liver sandwiches to famished passers-by who in turn feel that the bazaars are a convenient way of saving both effort and time in preparing food for the iftar (breakfast) and sahour (pre-dawn) meals. But what truly is the hidden cost that many consumers don’t see when they decide to purchase these readymade staples during the holy month?

Simply put the cost is their health, according to a number of doctors who say that consuming foods from open-air eateries located only meters from dusty, exhaust-filled streets is a dangerous risk and a gamble with one’s health.

Dr. Sobhia Mahmoud, a family practitioner at the New Jeddah Clinic Hospital, told Arab News: “Foods such as shawarma and those being sold out in the open are quite susceptible to bacteria with the worst offenders being Staphylococcus aureus, salmonella and e-coli, which are quite dangerous. I advise anyone eating out during Ramadan, or anytime for that matter, to do so in a closed, secluded atmosphere which is usually much more sanitary.”

She added that since Ramadan began there have been a noticeable amount of cases of gastritis, inflammation of the stomach lining, as well as some extreme cases due to eating unhygienic food.

To get a grasp on just how serious the problem is, Arab News toured Jeddah’s roadside eateries from the downtown Balad district to the north of the city, dropping in for visits at periodic times over a number of days. During our inspections we saw and photographed several food servers and venue owners touching food and wrapping it up for sale with their bare hands. We even caught some servers tending to wiping their noses and touching their faces while continuing to distribute food into containers for sale. Not to mention the swarm of flies and other insects occasionally landing for a quick bite.

When asked the reason for not following more hygienic methods of food handling, a venue operator angrily shouted slurs. “Do you want to ruin my business?” and began chasing our photographer.

A woman who was serving up pancakes by hand was also questioned. She only smiled and got up and walked away.

In recent months officials in Madinah and Makkah have been cracking down on unsanitary and usually illegal food operations. Madinah officials recently closed down a restaurant after 23 diners fell ill from consuming salmonella-tainted food, which was linked by investigators to the fingernails of a worker at the restaurant.

Makkah officials also recently shut down a warehouse full of rotten fish and meat in efforts to combat food-borne illnesses.

But the question that still remains is: What about Jeddah. Why have many outlets been blamed for being unhygienic and that too in one of the Kingdom’s largest cities? According to statistics from Cure Research, an independent research organization, Saudi Arabia had reported 132,773 cases of food poisoning in 2005 with the actual number likely to be much higher.

And it’s not just adults who have fallen ill. Dr. Sabri Tantawi, a pediatrician at Tarek Bin Laden Clinic in Al-Mushrefah district of Jeddah, said he has been witnessing an increase in cases of children who have become sick from contaminated food.

“Since the start of Ramadan I have had 10-15 cases of food-borne illnesses with the majority of patients coming in through the Emergency Room,” Tantawi said.

Commenting on the reason for the slow progress in ridding the city of roadside vendors, a municipality official told Arab News that the municipality itself has set forth strict guidelines on the operation of restaurants and has been cracking down on roadside vendors. “But the problem is when the municipality removes a vendor from the road and confiscates the contaminated food, the very next day there is another vendor in the very same place selling another food item,” he said.

The official added that this is what makes the progress non-existent and seem as if the municipality does nothing to contain the problem. “It is quite the contrary,” he said.

The project will be carried out by the Charitable Warehouse in Makkah, which has already won applause for supplying a million iftar meals to pilgrims in the Grand Mosque with the help of 300 orphans.

“We will set up more than 100 centers for the collection and distribution of Zakat Al-Fitr,” said Saud Al-Flait, director of the project. “We have completed all preparations to implement the project,” he added.

The charity has appointed a number of qualified Saudi workers to carry out the project in the proper way. The charity’s Jeddah branch successfully implemented a similar project last year. Both Saudis and expatriates welcomed the project, saying it was essential for money to reach deserving people.

For the past several years, Zakat Al-Fitr in most parts of the Kingdom is distributed in a haphazard manner without serving the purpose set by Islam. On the last day of Ramadan, people purchase bags of rice from street vendors and give them to people posing as poor who sell the rice back to the vendors.

Zakat Al-Fitr is a small amount that Muslims are obliged to pay as charity at the end of Ramadan. Its main purpose is to the poor with the means to celebrate the festival of breaking the fast, Eid Al-Fitr, along with the rest of the Muslims. It also provides believers an opportunity to make up for errors during the month of fasting.

The Charitable Warehouse in Makkah has been carrying out a number of programs to support poor families in the city. “From this year onward we want to distribute Zakat Al-Fitr in an organized manner,” said Yahya Al-Kenani, director of the charity in Makkah. “Those who want to give Zakat Al-Fitr can visit our centers in different parts of Makkah,” he said.

Referring to the distribution of iftar meals among pilgrims, he said: “We distribute about one million meals among pilgrims at the Grand Mosque and in parking areas around Makkah.”

Kenani said some 400 young men are involved in the distribution of iftar meals in the Haram in a quick and organized manner. They also remove the leftovers after iftar to keep the Haram neat and tidy.

As many as 136 women have been appointed to distribute iftar among women worshippers. The charity has established a food factory in Makkah at a cost of SR150,000, Kenani said, adding that the factory, which is run by 90 orphans, produces about 50,000 meals daily.