JEDDAH — Officials of the Passport Department rounded up more than 50 violators of residence and labor regulations in late-night operations in two working class neighborhoods of Jeddah yesterday.
The arrested included those who forged iqamas (residence permits), health cards and other official documents. The officials also arrested Filipino, Syrian and Chadian nationals who were living in the Kingdom legally but were employing or sheltering illegal residents. Housemaids that had run away from their sponsors were among those arrested.
Immigration officials carried out the operations in the Nuzlah and Faisaliah districts after midnight because most of the violators preferred to work in the night for fear of detection during the daytime.
The officials raided a number of illegally run car workshops, electronic repair shops, CD copying shops, beauty salons and tailoring houses. Ethiopian women peddlers of medicated oils and incenses were also arrested.
The officials also arrested illegally staying laborers hiding in some old buildings. While a few of them disappeared in the darkness, several of them were found hiding under beds and inside shelves. Some women were seen pleading for mercy from the officials saying that they were not committing a crime but earning the money to feed their children back home.
Brig. Muhammad Al-Asmari, director of the Passports Department for the Makkah province, supervised the operations.
By Ali Al-Amri, Arab News
4 thoughts on “Ethiopian women, other immigrants rounded up in Saudi Arabia”
The Saudis are the pain of the world. All they have is an Oil that is being sucked up by the demands of the so called developing and none developing countries. The day that reserve dries up, they are left with a scorching desert and an empty high rise. That day is coming.
They mistreat people like they are animals. They kill and rape as they wish. And now, we hear they are rounding up innocent people to match the work of their masters in the west.
When mala adminsteration of any goverment occurred it injects poverty and humiliation to its citizens.Now even the arabs dehumanize our hard working Ethiopians in the saudi kingdom.Once Ethiopia was the only nation who gave a shelter to thier spiritual leader.think again house of saudi.
what are they going to do cut their hands off for that too?
Look at the news and see how blind and stupid comment was given ‘Unity’. Thanks God that he is not the leader of Ethiopia. The guy better call himself DisUnity.
The news reports the arrest of Ethiopians that held forged iqamas (residence permits). Forgery is a crime any where and any one who did that is violating the law of the land. Any one should not be blinded by the fact that the violators were Ethiopians or the police that was enforcing the law was a Saudi.
Think for the moment what this person would do if he was the prime minister of Ethiopia and Ethiopia had the power to attack Saudi. Fortunately neither of them existed. I do not have sympathy for Saudi leadership, after all they are puppets of USA and Israel. It is kingship so there is no shred of democracy. But forgery and working without permit is violation of a country’s law. We Ethiopians who do have legal documents, refrain ourselves from alcohol distribution and prostitution to be reach overnight, are enjoying respect, love, and good pay from the Saudis.
Guys let us try to be reasonable and fair.