Thousands deported from Saudi Arabi

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP):

Saudi Arabian authorities have deported more than 12,000 migrants held under "appalling conditions" back to their native Somalia, where many now face life-threatening situations, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.

The New York-based rights group said in a statement that hundreds of women and children are among the migrants sent back to a country where hundreds of thousands live in dire conditions in camps in the capital, Mogadishu, after fleeing famine and violence elsewhere.

A number of the deportees are from parts of south-central Somalia where security has broken down and danger is rampant.

low-wage jobs

The deportations are part of a Saudi campaign to remove undocumented foreign workers after decades of lax immigration enforcement allowed migrants to take many low-wage jobs that the kingdom's own citizens shunned. Saudi authorities, grappling with high unemployment, now want those jobs for the kingdom's citizens.

The International Organization for Migration says the Somali government expects Saudi Arabia to deport another 30,000 people in the coming weeks. The United Nations refugee agency says its staff has been denied access by Saudi authorities to detained Somalis in the kingdom.

Human Rights Watch said that major donors to UNHCR, including the European Union and the United States, should press Saudi Arabia to end its deportations of Somalis.