ABHA, 24 August — The Passport Department in the Asir region deported a Saudi boy to Yemen for failing to convince them of his true identity, Al-Madinah reported. Yemeni Interpol eventually handed back the 11-year-old boy, named Yousuf, to Saudi authorities, at Tewal border post in Jizan.
Maj. Abdu Al-Barae of Sanaa police said they took care of the boy until arrangements could be made for his return. The boy, a student at an intermediate school in Khamees Mushayt, had not been on good terms with his father, who had divorced his mother. He ran away to put pressure on his mother and uncles to pay a fee of SR100,000 so he could leave his father and join them. The father had apparently insisted on that figure before he would let the boy go.
“I was traveling with two Yemenis when Passport Department officers in Asir detained us. I was then deported to Yemen for failing to make them believe I was a Saudi national,” the boy told the daily. Yousuf stayed in Sanaa for two weeks. “I told the police that I am a Saudi and gave them my father’s phone number,” he explained.
