Saudi Arabia has expelled 17,000 Yemeni migrants so far this year, amidst fears that it could deport up to 700,000 back to war and misery in their homeland, deepening the crisis, the U.N. migration agency says, Reuters reports.
The oil-rich kingdom has been imposing fines, jail time and deportation on migrants caught without valid identity documents in a push to reduce its abundant black market in labor.
“IOM can categorically say that between January and now 17,000 Yemenis have been turned back, simply because of their immigration status in Saudi Arabia,” Mohammed Abdiker, director of operations and emergencies at the International Organization for Migration (IOM), told Reuters.
This applied to irregular migrants being returned to countries including Bangladesh, the Philippines and Ethiopia.
“But our line is you cannot return people to a country like Yemen, particularly when you are bombing it yourself,” Abdiker said. “So is there any way the Saudis can waive this for the Yemenis until there is a country to go back to?”
Some 700,000 Yemeni migrants work in Saudi Arabia, he said, speaking in his office on Tuesday on return from Yemen.
A Saudi-led coalition backed by the West has carried out air strikes against the armed Houthi movement in a war since 2015 to restore the internationally recognized government.
The Iran-aligned Houthis control more than 70 percent of Yemen, including the capital Sanaa.
More than 10,000 people have been killed in a war that has displaced 3 million internally and unleashed the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, the U.N. says.
A Saudi interior ministry spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.