Dubai, October 01: Scores of Indians are roughing it out under a motorway flyover in Jeddah, hoping to get arrested and deported on a free ticket from the Saudi government.
The workers are among the many expatriate illegals sleeping and eating in unsanitary conditions beneath King Fahd Road, sometimes for months on end, hoping to return home on a free ticket, the National daily reported.
Riyadh has long had a policy of paying for the airfare, home of Muslim pilgrims who overstay their visas after coming to the kingdom for the Umrah or Haj pilgrimages to Mecca. The immigrant workers, who have usually fled jobs because of disputes with their Saudi employers, or just because they want to go home, hope to piggyback on this Saudi policy and get a free ride home, according to diplomats and journalists.
The men said they slept in the open air. Nearby, someone had set up shop on a counter, selling basic grocery items. Undaunted by the heat from concrete and asphalt and the noise of traffic overhead, these workers from ”poverty-ridden countries – Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Indonesia and Sri Lanka” lounged about on pieces of cardboards or blankets.
Gen Mansour al Turki, an interior ministry spokesman, said immigration authorities deport on average 500 people of all nationalities a day. Overstayers cannot return to the kingdom for at least five years.
—Agencies