Saudi Arabia no longer wants illegal migrant workers smuggled into the kingdom. Stuck by the war raging in Yemen, these illegal immigrants do not always have the possibility of returning home. Many have been imprisoned by Saudi police who are hunting them down. As part of an agreement signed between the two countries, the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry has announced that it will repatriate 100,000 of its citizens from Saudi Arabia over the coming months.
The first of them arrived on March 30, 2022 in Addis Ababa from Jeddah. About 900 people, many of them mothers with small children landed at Addis Ababa International Airport, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said. They “were taken care of and registered by IOM teams and were offered, among other things, food, temporary accommodation, medical assistance and counselling”explains the UN organization in a press release.
“We are back in our blessed country after six months in prison.rejoices Medina, a young woman of 28, but many of our brothers continue to suffer especially in men’s prisons.” Human rights organizations have been denouncing for several years the conditions of detention of Ethiopian migrants who arrived illegally in Saudi Arabia.
Working women in Saudi families are often exploited as nannies or child minders. The men, on the other hand, work on construction sites or in all kinds of difficult jobs depending on the economic situation. But the Saudi authorities, who have decided to drastically curb this immigration, arrest them and imprison them in terrible conditions: “We were crying every day. We were given bread and a pot of cooked rice for 300 people. Sometimes even 400 people lived in the same room and we didn’t see the sunlight”told AFP Jemila Shafi, 29, on her arrival.
“Around 750,000 Ethiopians currently residing in the (Saudi) kingdom, of whom some 450,000 entered illegally and will need to be assisted to return home”
International Organization for Migration (IOM)at AFP
“Meeting the needs of the 100,000 returnees will be a huge challenge for the government (Ethiopian)“, stresses the IOM. These people “are our citizens. They have known very painful moments. When the government understood their pain (…) it began diplomatic discussions” to bring them back, said Hana Yeshingus, a representative of the Ethiopian Ministry of Women and Children. The Ethiopian authorities have encouraged these departures to the Wahhabi kingdom, because these migrants have been bringing in significant foreign currency (money transfers) for many years.