RIYADH, 14 December 2002 — The Coast Guard has rescued 71 Sri Lankans aboard a crippled ship that was adrift in Saudi territorial waters after developing some technical problems.
All people on board the ship are reported to be in good health despite their eight days of ordeal while adrift in Saudi and international waters.
“The Sri Lankan boat named Blue Star Marine developed a technical failure in the international waters and then drifted toward the territorial waters of the Kingdom,” said a statement released by the Ministry of Interior here yesterday. All rescued Sri Lankan nationals have been provided food as well as health and accommodation facilities by the Saudi government, the statement added.
The ship was spotted on Wednesday as it drifted toward the southwestern coast in the Jizan area.
Sri Lankan Ambassador Ibrahim Sahib Ansar told Arab News that “on behalf of Sri Lanka, I thank the Saudi government for this gesture of support and care. We are finding out more details of the incident and we will make immediate arrangements for the repatriation of the stranded Sri Lankans, whose boat drifted toward the southwestern region of the Kingdom.”
Ansar recalled that in another incident six months ago, more than 140 Sri Lankans were rescued by the Saudi Coast Guard when their boat developed a technical snag.
“On arrival in the western coast of Saudi Arabia at the time, the government allowed the Sri Lankans to disembark and complete their documentation to enable them to be repatriated back to Sri Lanka”, said the envoy.
Saudi Arabia is home to over 300,000 Sri Lankans including a large number of housemaids.
Asked why Sri Lankan boats were often
losing their way or developing technical failure, Ameer Ajward, second secretary at the Sri Lankan Embassy, did not rule out the possibility of Sri Lankans seeking illegal immigration to some countries in the Gulf. That is why the Coast Guard also first suspected the Sri Lankans to be infiltrators.
The Kingdom’s Coast Guard arrested some 107,000 infiltrators in the four months ending mid-July this year. A majority of infiltrators from many countries, besides smugglers, are believed to have entered the Kingdom’s southwestern provinces from Yemen.
In the year ending mid-March, the Saudi Coast Guard arrested 377,000 infiltrators and 3,400 smugglers besides confiscating 2,690 kilos of hashish, 71,000 narcotic pills and some 23,000 bottles of alcohol.
The Kingdom has two important coasts extending more than 2,900 kms along the Arabian Gulf and the Red Sea.
