Gov’t shouldering burden of repatriating citizens from Middle East

BY DARGIE KAHSAY

Currently Ethiopia is repatriating more than 2500 citizens daily from Saudi Arabia fol­lowing the mass arrest by Saudi government on Ethiopian citizens. For the successful repatriation and follow-up of the process, a technical committee was established and the process is going smoothly at this time. This effort of Ethiopia is helping thousands of Ethiopians who were detained for long.

Approached by The Ethiopian Herald Dr. Mohammed Indris, Deputy Director-Gen­eral of Ethiopian Diaspora Agency (EDA) said that due to the geographical proximity and cultural similarity, a lot of Ethiopians are traveling to Saudi to seek job both le­gally and illegally.

Following this around 800 thousand Ethio­pians are believed to be living in Saudi Ara­bia. Out of these only around 183 thousand of them are registered and possess legal per­mission to live there. This makes Ethiopians the largest number of foreigners living there without legal resident permit, he indicated.

Due to this reason, the increasing illegal number of foreigners in Saudi, and Saudi’s current project of Saudization to create more employment for its citizens, Saudi started arresting and deporting foreign­ers with no legal work permit, though the current campaign seems beyond that since citizens with legal working license are also becoming targeted.

So, directly and indirectly, they are working for the withdrawal of foreigners especially those without legal working license. De­porting illegal travelers were there though it was insignificant in number, since human trafficking is continued.

According to Dr. Mohammed over two hundred thousand citizens were repatriated during the past two years from Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries. During the past eight years, Ethiopia has repatriated over 880 thousand citizens from the Middle East mainly and the trend of deporting citi­zens by receiving countries and Ethiopia’s repatriation effort trends are not new. Ma­jority of the repartee make it back there ille­gally further complicating the efforts to con­trol the situation , according to Mohammed.

But, the current deportation is special for two reasons, one due to COVID-19 timely repatriation of citizens were interrupted and currently those with legal living and work­ing licenses are also targeted in Saudi, ac­cording to the Deputy Director-General.

This shows that human trafficking is flow­ing unstoppably and the receiving countries are also deporting foreign citizens unstop­pably. Due to this vicious circle, Ethiopia is also continuing repatriating citizens either they travelled illegally or legally.

Though the trend is common, this year’s deporting and repatriation is unique due to the outbreak of COVID-19 globally. As a result flight was closed and those deported before and during the COVID-19 remained in Saudi prisons for long time and the num­ ber of deported citizens increased daily. The situation affects repatriating those citizens during the movement that they were cap­tured by security forces in Saudi due to lack of flight. Additional and new ones are also added to the number of prisoners which in­creased the number.

“Saudi doesn’t stop rounding up foreign­ers without legal resident permit before and during the COVID-19. They arrest them while trying to sneak through borders, when they are caught on streets or anywhere” Mo­hammed noted.

To solve this problem and to communicate with Saudi officials about the repatriation and to manage the problem, Ethiopian Di­aspora Agency’s delegation team has trav­eled to Saudi, Mohammed said “I was the team leader of the delegation,” he noted. After discussing with Saudi’s higher offi­cials including State Minister for Foreign Affairs, State Minister for Interior Ministry and State Minister of Labor and Social Af­fairs, and visiting the prisons in Riyadh and Jeddah, the team reported its findings to the Ethiopian government immediately.

“At that time around 27 thousand citizens were in prisons and following the team’s report, a decision reached with the govern­ment to repatriate all the citizens in prisons. The decision was to repatriate one thou­sand citizens per week and to repatriate all the citizens through process,” Mohammed stated.

‘Immediate repatriation of one thousand citizens started and a lot of citizens have ar­rived home” Mohammed said “but, compar­ing the huge number of citizens in prisons, repatriating one thousand in a week was not much.” Not only that, he stated, Saudi continued the mass arrest and detention. Though the goal was to repatriate 27 thou­sand citizens slowly, by repatriating them one thousand of them per week, daily ad­ditional number of citizens were joined the prisoners as Saudi continued mass arrest of the illegal ones.

 “Though Ethiopia was struggling to repa­triate that number, recently the situation in Saudi got worse as the mass arrest contin­ued including inhumane treatment on both the legal and illegal ones” he said. The re­cent acts were unusual, due to this reason, the additional number which is almost equal with the number planned to be repatriated eight months ago was added further worsen­ing the situation.

Then, recently the government decided to repatriate at least up to 30 thousand citizens within short period of time. To facilitate the repatriation and for the smooth management of the process, a new delegation team has traveled to Saudi and started the repatriation recently with a daily flight and travelling more than two thousand citizens per day started a week ago, Mohammed reiterated. Head of Citizens’ Legal Protection Director of the Agency is leading the team in Saudi and managing the overall repatriation pro­cess and repatriation of citizens is going as per the schedule, he further pointed out.

Approached by The Ethiopian Herald, among the citizens repatriated last week said that though they are happy as they ar­rive in their motherland. But they exclaimed that their happiness is partial since their friends are still languishing in Saudi prisons waiting to be rescued.

A youth who didn’t want to mention his name told The Ethiopian Herald that he spent over a year in prison in Jeddah, “it was very critical and difficult time of my life, now I am free from that dark life thanks to my government and the almighty God.” But, the repatriated citizens compared to those left in the prisons are too small and a strong and joint coordination is necessary to help these citizens to repatriate to their homelands to free them from mental and physical sufferings.

The other youth on his part also stated that many citizens suffered different physical problems since there are inhuman treat­ments mainly up on being captured by  se­curity forces. Government should continue its efforts of repatriating those citizens in a difficult situation, he said, appreciating the efforts of the government so far.

In this regard, other responsible actors should also strongly engage to support gov­ernment’s initiative of repatriating this huge number of citizens, the repatriated youths added. They also call the government and relevant actors to support them while arriv­ing at home since they spent in prisons.

Meanwhile, Mohammed stated that the repatriation process has continued and is expected to repatriate up to 30 thousand citizens only within weeks. And the govern­ment is committed to continue repatriating citizens to its maximum capacity.

“The current efforts are temporary solu­tions; the permanent solution is controlling human trafficking and illegal movement of citizens” Mohammed underlined. “As I told you earlier, we have repatriated over 200 thousand citizens during the past three years, but still the problem remains a critical problem”

Hence, Mohammed said, the permanent solution is examining the root cause of the problem. Though human trafficking is a complex problem currently as it remains a headache not only for Ethiopia but also the world. So, under the umbrella of Attorney General, a team has established which in­cluded nine different institutions with high profile. This aims to bring a permanent solu­tion at least to reduce the problem and “our agency is boldly participating in supporting these citizens and will continue its efforts to fulfill its responsibility,” he stated.

Though the current hot agenda is repatriat­ing the citizens, to support the returnees, Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and Ministry of Peace are working together.

The Ethiopian Herald July 11/2021