Two dead, 68 injured in Saudi clashes over crackdown on illegal workers

Foreign nationals clash with police in Riyadh a week after authorities begin crackdown on illegal workers.

Elizabeth Dickinson

Gulf Correspondent

Two people were killed and at least 68 injured in clashes between police and protesting foreign nationals in Riyadh, one week after authorities began a crackdown on illegal workers in the kingdom.

Some protesters wielded knives, threw stones and barricaded themselves in the narrow streets of Manfuhah, a neighbourhood in the south of the capital, when police moved in to disperse them, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.

A Saudi citizen was among the dead and 28 Saudis were among the injured, Riyadh police spokesman Brig Gen Nasser Al Qahtani told the agency. Fifty people were hospitalised following the clashes and 561 were arrested. Neighbourhood shops and more than 100 cars also suffered extensive damage, SPA reported.

Brig Gen Al Qahtani did not identify the nationalities of the protesters in Manfuhah, describing them only as “instigators”. The district is heavily populated by illegal migrants, most from east Africa.

A reporter for Al Arabiya television station said the demonstrators hailed from Ethiopia and were resisting efforts to detain and deport them.

The Ethiopian Embassy in Riyadh did not answer calls requesting information about the alleged participation of Ethiopian nationals in the unrest. The country’s foreign ministry in the capital Addis Ababa on Friday condemned “mistreatment of its citizens residing in Saudi Arabia”.

Last Wednesday, police reportedly killed an Ethiopian migrant who was allegedly fleeing arrest and deportation. Ethiopian authorities said they were seeking an explanation for the incident from the Saudi government.

The unrest comes after Saudi authorities, in a bid to cut the jobless rate of more than 12.5 per cent among its native population, announced in May that all foreign workers in the kingdom had until July 3 to obtain proper work permits and immigration papers. On July 2, King Abdullah extended to November 4 the deadline for all migrant workers to formalise their residency and employment status.

Nearly a million migrants -- Bangladeshis, Filipinos, Indians, Nepalis, Pakistanis and Yemenis among them -- took advantage of the amnesty to leave Saudi Arabia. An estimated four million others were able to find employers to sponsor them.

Upon the expiration of the grace period, more than 150 teams of police officers and immigration officials began unnannounced inspections of workplaces throughout the country and round-ups of daily workers, the daily newspaper Arab News reported.

By the end of the second day of the campaign, police had detained 16,000 illegal workers, the Al Riyadh newspaper reported.

Many expatriates stayed home from work this week out of fear of the raids. The embassies of the Philippines, India and Sri Lanka, among others, have set up hotlines to assist workers who missed the amnesty’s deadline.

*With agencies