SANA’A: Tens of thousands of Yemeni workers left Saudi Arabia and thousands more are expected to depart in the coming weeks ahead of a planned crackdown on illegally registered expatriates in the kingdom, a Yemeni official said.
The exodus could further worsen Yemen’s already dismal economy, which leans on remittances from workers in Gulf states, endangering the stability of a country seen by Al Qaeda as a new base.
“Our figures show that 53,000 were deported since the beginning of this month because they were staying illegally in Saudi territories,” Abdulkader Eidh, undersecretary of the Yemeni ministry of expatriates, told Reuters yesterday.
“We expect the number of the deported to reach 150,000 after the grace period expires in ten days.”
The Yemeni official said hundreds of thousands of Yemenis have already fixed their legal status in the kingdom. He added the number of Yemenis in Saudi Arabia was close to one million.
Saudi Arabia is trying to reduce a black market in labour among the estimated nine million foreigners in the country, which the government says makes it harder for Saudi citizens to find jobs and economists say fosters inefficiency.
In April, the government announced a three-month grace period, ending on July 3, for workers to legalise their status in Saudi Arabia.
Pro-democracy protests in 2011 brought Yemen, a US ally, to the brink of civil war and dealt a blow to its economy.
The country faces a rebellion by Zaydi Shias in the north, an Islamist insurgency in the south and east, and a southern secessionist movement.
REUTERS
