A research institute said that caves in remote areas of the Saudi capital, Riyadh, have become a haven for Ethiopian workers to escape forced deportations that threaten them collectively in the Kingdom, despite the humanitarian and health risks facing them.
The Impact International Foundation for Human Rights Policies has documented what it called the dire conditions experienced by dozens of Ethiopian workers fighting the deportation operations, making their humanitarian conditions - already deteriorating - worsening and posing a serious threat to their lives.
This institution is an independent intellectual center, headquartered in London, the United Kingdom, and works in research on the policies of countries, institutions and companies that violate human rights.
#Saudi Arabia ◀ Caves are an Ethiopian worker shelter to escape forced relocations https://t.co/TVuKGw1S9L
- ImpACT International 🔎 (@ImpactPolicies) May 28, 2020
Impact said that it had seen video clips documenting the hiding of Ethiopian workers inside caves and rugged mountain fissures in different areas of Riyadh, such as the neighborhood of Mahdia, to escape the pursuit campaigns launched against them by the Saudi police.
Laws and violations
On May 3, the Saudi police announced the arrest of 1467 "violators of residency and border security systems" in Riyadh from a number of nationalities, in a number of different locations, including those who took caves and rugged mountain fissures as hideouts.
At the time, the media spokesman for the Riyadh region police, Colonel Shaker bin Suleiman Al-Tuwaijri, stated that those sites were arrested and 53 violators of the residency system, all of them of Ethiopian nationality, and that all legal measures were taken against them.
"Impact" indicated that this is taking place in light of the outbreak of the emerging coronavirus, "Covid-19 ″, which puts workers' safety at great risk in the absence of the lowest safety and prevention standards.
She indicated that this matter comes despite the United Nations confirming on April 14 that Saudi Arabia's deportation of irregular migrant workers to Ethiopia threatens to spread the new Corona virus, and urged Riyadh to stop the procedure for the time being.
Relocation and injuries
A spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, Alemayehu Saifi Selassie, said that since last March, the organization had registered the return of 2870 Ethiopians, all of whom were expelled by Saudi Arabia, with the exception of 100 people. The Ethiopian authorities confirmed large-scale deportations of their citizens from Saudi Arabia.
Ethiopian Health Minister Lea Tadesse said that some migrant workers who had been deported from Saudi Arabia had confirmed their infection with the Corona virus, but had not revealed an accurate count.
An internal UN memo showed that Saudi Arabia is expected to deport a total of two hundred thousand Ethiopian immigrants.
For years, Ethiopian workers have complained of being subjected to forced repatriation campaigns that do not take into account their humanitarian and safety conditions, as well as the confiscation of all their property on the grounds of illegal residency.
According to "Impact", Saudi Arabia remains one of the few countries that have not ratified the main international treaties relating to the detention of migrants, and the line between migrant detention and imprisonment in the kingdom remains unclear, and human rights organizations are not allowed to examine the conditions of migrants held in prisons or in deportation centers.