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As deadline expires, illegal foreigners queue up to leave Saudi Arabia

November 3, 2013

Gulf_Expatriates4

Riyadh, Nov 3: Thousands of illegal foreigners, mostly unskilled workers from Asia, are rushing to leave Saudi Arabia before an amnesty expires on Sunday as they risk being fined or even jailed.

Nearly a million Bangladeshis, Filipinos, Indians, Nepalis, Pakistanis and Yemenis, among others, have taken advantage of the three-month amnesty announced on April 3 and then extended for four months and left the country.

Another roughly four million have legalised their situation by finding employers to sponsor them, a must to reside in most Gulf monarchies.

But the clock is ticking, and the Saudi Labour Ministry has said there will be no second chance, despite appeals from some Asian governments.

Amnesty not to be extended

“We have absolutely no intention of prolonging the amnesty,” said Ministry spokesman Hattab al-Anzi.

Pakistan said this week that it has been pressing for an extension of the amnesty until the end of January.

Even so, its Foreign Ministry spokesman Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry said: “We are trying our best to legalise as many Pakistanis as we can before the deadline ends.”

In contrast, Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin told AFP “we have not asked for extra time,” explaining Indians had been urged to “abide by the rules, and we have had quite remarkable success.”

Rushing through paperwork

So foreigners are queuing up outside governmental offices either to sort out the paperwork for leaving the kingdom or legalising their stays.

The Arab News daily said some Indians seeking repatriation had waited more than 31 hours outside the deportation centre in the Red Sea city of Jeddah to get the documents to leave.

The immigration department said on Thursday that “more than 9,00,000 people have left the country with final exit visas.”

Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, is a goldmine for millions of people from Asia and elsewhere in the Arab world, who find work as common labourers, drivers, porters and house maids.

Expatriates account for around nine million of the country’s 27 million population.

Saudi Arabia has the Arab world’s largest economy, but the unemployment rate among natives is above 12.5 per cent, a figure the government is aiming to reduce.

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News Network
May 25,2020

May 25: A total of 241 Indians including 136 people who were jailed in Kuwait would return to the country soon, a senior minister said on Sunday.

The other 105 people were stranded in Bangladesh, Law Minister Ratan Lal Nath said.

"Altogether 136 people from Tripura and Assam, who are at present in jail in Kuwait for violating that country's laws, would be deported. They will reach Guwahati between May 27 and June 4 in a special flight," Nath told reporters.

He said the matter has been officially informed by the Kuwaiti government, but the reason for their imprisonment is not known.

"We had requested the Kuwaiti authorities to drop the Tripura residents here. However, they informed us that the flight would land in a single airport," the minister added.

Nath said 105 residents of Tripura, who are stranded in different places of Bangladesh will return to the state through the Agartala-Akhaura integrated check post on May 28.

"They would be taken to institutional quarantine and swabs of all the passengers would be collected for COVID-19 test," Nath said.

If the report of their samples tests negative, they would be allowed to leave the facility and remain under 14 days of home quarantine. And those who test positive would be hospitalized, he said.

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KT
April 14,2020

Dubai, Apr 14: Saudi Arabia reported 435 new cases of coronavirus, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 5369, the Ministry of Health announced on Tuesday.

According to the ministry of health the number of recoveries today are 84 cases, making total of recoveries in the kingdom 889.

The ministry also confirmed 8 deaths bringing the total number of deaths in the kingdom to 73.

Saudi Arabia imposed a 24-hour curfew and lockdown on the cities of Riyadh, Tabuk, Dammam, Dhahran and Hofuf and throughout the governorates of Jeddah, Taif, Qatif and Khobar. This week the curfew was extended until further notice.

Containment efforts
Saudi authorities are racing to contain an outbreak of coronavirus in the Islamic holy city of Mecca.

The total number of coronavirus cases reported in Mecca, home to 2 million people, reached 1,050 on Monday compared to 1,422 in the capital of Riyadh, a city more than three times the size. Mecca’s large number of undocumented immigrants and cramped housing for migrant workers have made it more difficult to slow the infection rate.

Saudi Arabia has reported one of the lowest rates of infection in the region, with around 5,000 cases in a population of over 30 million.

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Agencies
July 31,2020

Makkah, Jul 31: Organising this year's scaled-down hajj required "double efforts" by Saudi authorities amid the coronavirus pandemic, King Salman said Friday after being discharged from hospital following gall bladder surgery.

Only up to 10,000 people already residing in the kingdom are participating in this year's pilgrimage, compared with 2019's gathering of some 2.5 million from around the world.

"Holding the ritual in the shadow of this pandemic... required reducing the numbers of pilgrims, but it obliged various official agencies to put in double efforts," 84-year-old King Salman said in a speech read out on state television by acting media minister Majid Al-Qasabi.

"The hajj this year was restricted to a very limited number of people from multiple nationalities, ensuring the ritual was completed despite the difficult circumstances," he said.

The speech came on the occasion of Eid al-Adha, the Muslim festival of sacrifice, a day after the king left hospital following a 10-day stay for surgery to remove his gall bladder.

The hajj, which began on Wednesday, is one of the five pillars of Islam and a must for able-bodied Muslims at least once in their lifetime.

Authorities implemented the "highest health precautions" during the rituals, the king said.

Pilgrims, who were all tested for the virus, are required to wear masks and observe social distancing.

For Friday's "stoning of the devil", the last major ritual of the hajj, Saudi authorities offered the pilgrims pebbles that were sanitised to protect against the pandemic.

In a sign that its strict measures were working, the health ministry reported no coronavirus cases in the holy sites on Wednesday or Thursday.

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