No fewer than 65,000 Ethiopians have returned home as Saudi Arabia deadline for undocumented migrants to leave nears, a news report said on Friday.
Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson, Meles Alem, said with the extended Saudi amnesty deadline expected to expire on Sunday, Ethiopian Government was ramping efforts to repatriate Ethiopians willing to return from the Arab nation.
Saudi Arabia announced in March, 2017, a three-month amnesty programme for undocumented foreign migrants to voluntarily leave the country before the amnesty’s expiration in late June.
However, the country gave one month extension to provide more time to the migrants to return to their countries.
According to Alem, another 65,000 undocumented Ethiopians still living in Saudi Arabia have registered in Ethiopian diplomatic missions in Saudi Arabia in order to return home.
“There are no exact figures on the number of Ethiopians illegally living in Saudi Arabia but some estimates put the number closer to 400,000 engaged in jobs ranging from maids to construction sites.
“With a growing population currently at around 30 million and a squeeze in international oil price, Saudi Arabia is on a drive to indigenise its work force currently dominated by millions of illegal and legal migrants,’’ the report said.
The approaching deadline recalled painful memories of Ethiopians in the last deportation debacle in November, 2013 when a deportation round by Saudi authorities on illegal migrants left many Ethiopians in detention camps.
The Ethiopian government has already dispatched a dozen diplomats in its embassy in Riyadh and consular offices in other Saudi cities to give consular advice to stranded nationals.
The Ethiopian government in May, with an eye to curb illegal migration, signed an agreement with the Saudi Arabia government for an overseas employment agreement to help future legal Ethiopian migrants.
It has also put advertorials in Ethiopian electronic media, urging relatives of Ethiopians illegally residing in Saudi Arabia to persuade them to return ahead of the expiry of the Amnesty deadline. (Xinhua/NAN)
ACO/OPI