Ethiopia says 1,400 nationals freed from Saudi prisons pending deportation

Ethiopia's foreign ministry said the freed prisoners will return home, without mentioning a reason for the release.

2 min read

09 May, 2019

Saudi Arabia has jailed thousands of Ethiopians for illegally entering the country. [Getty]

Ethiopia's foreign ministry said on Wednesday that 1,400 of the country's citizens had been freed from prison in Saudi Arabia.

A statement from the ministry did not mention a reason for the release, however in recent years Saudi Arabia has rounded up and jailed thousands of Ethiopians for illegally entering the kingdom.

The ministry said that it planned to bring the prisoners back home.

"Three hundred of the 1,400 released Ethiopian prisoners will return home from Saudi Arabia on Wednesday evening," while the others will return in the coming days, said the statement.

Ethiopia is Africa's second most populous country and also one of its poorest.

Despite rapid economic growth over the past decade, many Ethiopians seek to try their luck elsewhere, mostly countries in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, even if they don't have any visas and have to brave war zones like Yemen to get there.

An estimated 334,000 Ethiopians migrated to the Middle East between 2006 and 2014, according to the Regional Mixed Migration Secretariat, a group of international organisations that monitor migration in East Africa and Yemen.

Tens of thousands of Ethiopians returned home from Saudi Arabia following an order forcing all undocumented migrants to leave the oil-rich kingdom in March 2017, according to Ethiopian officials.

The order was later extended until June but the majority of migrants remained. Those who did not leave faced forced deportation and a range of fines.

More than 400,000 Ethiopian migrants are estimated to live in Saudi Arabia, most working as domestic workers and farm workers.

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