Around 600 expatriate Bangladeshis, who were staying illegally in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) for a long time, are set to return home very soon.
The Saudi authorities have asked the Bangladesh embassy to make a list of those expatriates who were staying in the country without any kind of documents and were outside the purview of a general amnesty declared in May this year, sources said. The embassy made a list of such people staying illegally, numbering around 600 expatriate Bangladeshis, a high-ranking official of the embassy disclosed. The Bangladesh embassy will issue a travel pass to each person so that they can leave Saudi Arabia, he said. The process of their repatriation would begin very soon, he told The Independent over telephone.
“The Saudi authorities agreed to permit them to leave KSA without any punishment or fine being imposed following active diplomatic initiatives by the Bangladesh embassy officials,” said Shahidul Islam, Bangladesh’s ambassador in Riyadh. Otherwise, they would have had to face imprisonment for various terms and a fine of Saudi 1.5 lakh riyals, he pointed out. They are happy because they would be able to go home after a long time, he added.
These expatriates had gone there long ago for performing Hajj or Umrah and did not return. They had lost all sorts of documents and had been living there for 15 to 25 years, the source pointed out. These expatriates even lost their Bangladeshi passports, ID cards and travel documents. In the absence of any documents, they could not avail the opportunity for general amnesty for correcting their Akama (residence permit), the officials at the Bangladesh embassy in Riyadh disclosed.
Many of them were ready to leave KSA much earlier, but could not do so as there was no such opportunity. If they were nabbed, they would have faced imprisonment and fines in various categories. As the KSA government has agreed to permit them to leave, they are now on their way home.
Earlier, a total of 31,000 illegal Bangladeshis came back home from the kingdom during a six-month-long general amnesty declared by the kingdom for the illegal expatriate workers. During the period of amnesty, a total of 7.92 lakh Bangladeshi expatriates corrected their residence permits.
After the general amnesty period expired on November 3, the KSA authorities launched a crackdown to nab expatriates who were staying in the kingdom illegally. Not many Bangladeshis were netted during the raid, however, as most of them had already corrected their staying documents. Only a few — not more than 20 — were caught during the raid, according to embassy sources.
The source said the Saudi government may extend the amnesty for another time period to clear out all people staying illegally and hire fresh people. Around two lakh illegal expatriates left the country during the amnesty and another one lakh were sent back home by force after they were nabbed during the crackdown. Most of the expatriates who had to be sent back home by force had gone to the kingdom from African countries.
According to sources, around 1.5 million Bangladeshis are now in KSA for jobs. The KSA stopped recruiting fresh workers from Dhaka since 2009 following reports of the presence of a large number of illegal Bangladeshis.
-With The Independent input
