JEDDAH, 7 December 2003 — The appalling accident in which a truck plowed into a group of day laborers in a busy Jeddah street has cast a spotlight on the illegal immigrant industry in Saudi Arabia.
Six people were killed and six injured — all of them illegal immigrants — when an Ethiopian driver, himself an illegal, drove into them as he swerved to avoid a jaywalker.
Witnesses said the Ethiopian had been driving at breakneck speed.
For a long time now, immigrants of many nationalities have been gathering in certain areas in Jeddah to look for work. They work as plumbers, carpenters, construction workers, car repair men and even grocers.
“I drive, I build, and I sell vegetables — everything,” an Ethiopian house painter told Arab News.
Rarely attached to a single workplace for any length of time, the illegals work where they are needed.
Police say the laborers often try to escape poverty and hunger in their own countries for a hand-to-mouth existence here. They enter the country on a Umrah/Haj visa and simply stay on after it has expired.
“I came to Saudi Arabia a year ago during Haj, and I have been trying to make a living ever since,” an Indian carpenter said.
But police add that some illegal laborers bring drugs and other contraband into the market too.
Police are intensifying efforts to catch them, and regular sweeps by the Passports Department net large numbers of these illegals, who are then deported.
An inordinate number of serious road accidents are reportedly caused by illegal immigrants working as truck drivers, often driving at high speed for long hours without breaks.
But despite heated denunciation of these workers in some Arabic papers and the ill-will many people feel toward them, they continue to be attractive to Saudi employers. This is not least because they are cheaper — no need to pay for their iqama, their insurance or other benefits.
Officers point out that if there was no market for the services of the day laborers, they would soon disperse. But they keep coming.
Brig. Ayed Al-Luqmani of the Passports Department has warned that anyone harboring or employing illegal immigrants will be punished to the full extent of the law. But the industry continues to flourish.
