Deportation of 25 thousand Yemeni workers from KSA [Archives:2004/709/Local News]

Mohammed bin Sallam
The dispute crisis between Saudi Arabia and Yemen has lately been escalated in a dramatic way that may return the tense relations between them that continued for ten years following the Iraq invasion of Kuwait beginning of the nineties of the last century.
Senior political sources told the Yemeni weekly newspaper Al-Tagamou on Monday 26 January said the Saudi authorities had expressed determination to reduce the number of Yemeni labour entering the Saudi territories whether in legal or illegal ways because of the state of economic inflation the kingdom is experiencing for years.
According to the source the Saudi security authorities intend to deport 25 thousand Yemeni workers most of whom are living on its territories in an illegal way.
The list of the deportees is expected to contain thousands of those who have not completed their acquiring the legitimate residence since their entering the Saudi especially after the facilities offered to them according the Jedda treaty. Officials at Yemen's major airports and border crossings affirmed that increasing number of the Yemeni workers deported by force from the kingdom territories. While the number of deported Yemeni workers is on the rise, observers expect the Saudi authorities begin after the present season of pilgrimage and intensive campaign to purge their territories from illegal residents.
Senior sources have also told the same newspaper that Riyadh might retract from the decision of the facilities of residence it had offered to the Yemenis after the Jedda border treaty . The sources say the Saudi Arabia would abolish facilities for entering its territories, such as work visas and applications for private visits granted after signing the borders treaty on June 2000.
A news story in the same issue of the paper mentioned that its sources said that Al-Muala police in Aden have released lately in a way violating the law three people, among them two Saudis, who were imprisoned on charges of forging currencies. The sources affirmed that releasing the accused people was done with informing security authorities, pointing out that some security elements were proved to be involved in the operation after receiving sums of money from the defendants as bribes. Security authorities had lately arrested the accused in an Aden hotel and found with them forged sums of Saudi currency.
Reports mention that the Saudi consul has approached more than once the security sides for their release of the Saudi citizens. The sources do not rule out conniving of security elements in their release in return for receiving money from other Saudi persons.
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