MAKKAH, 9 April 2006 — Muhammad Abdul Jalil got a bargain when he approached the Saudi Arabian border with Yemen. Other undocumented migrants generally pay more for help in crossing the southern border into the Kingdom.
It happens that Abdul Jalil, a Yemeni national, encountered a Bedouin who was willing to help him and 15 others on for a mere SR50 apiece. “I agreed with a Bedouin from Abla to sneak us to Makkah for SR50,” said Abdul Jalil.
“I took a long journey with 15 other illegal migrants until we reached Makkah by back roads to avoid police. I started working as a construction worker. They were paying good but good times did not last for long as I got arrested along with many others in a raid by the Passport Department and police.”
Abdul Jalil and two other undocumented migrants from Yemen spoke to Arab News recently after being arrested in Makkah. They describe the poor conditions and lack of work in Yemen as their primary motivation for making the long, hard slog north in search of a better life.
Gayed Ali, another Yemeni illegal migrant, said that he lived in very poor conditions in Yemen. Work there was unavailable. He decided along with a group of others to sneak into Saudi Arabia in search of work.
The journey was long. They had to walk from their villages in Yemen to Al-Tuwal, a remote town in the south of Saudi Arabia.
“A smuggler offered to take us to Abu Areesh area in the south for 1,000 riyals each,” said Ali.
The idea was simple, which was to take the easy main road. Before reaching the immigration checkpoint, the migrants got out the car and circumvented authorities in the desert. After the checkpoint, they had a rendezvous with the migrant smuggler’s car and continued northward.
“The difficult part was reaching Makkah because we have to walk on foot between the mountains and through the desert and that involves a lot of risks,” said Ali.
Basheer Abdu, who was caught for the third time by Saudi authorities, said that the best way to smuggle people into Saudi Arabia is to sneak at night when it is very hard for the border guards to detect illegal entries.
“I did the same thing this time,” said Abdu. “It’s easy to smuggle yourself at night but the difficult part is to cross to your destination within Saudi Arabia. It gets harder as you move north. You have to avoid many checkpoints.”
Like the others, Abdu said working conditions was the main factors for his trip north.
“I work as a plumber in Yemen. This profession is not profitable there, but very profitable in the Kingdom,” he said before being taken for processing and deportation.
