The two men, found on Friday near Wadi Al-Dawasir, were part of a group of 15 illegal immigrants who were being smuggled across the western region's Renya Desert — a 62,000 square-kilometer sea of sand — by a Saudi driver. They were being smuggled for a fee of SR1,500 per head to Taif, a popular summer destination for Saudi families.
The Civil Defense reported on Saturday that the two men had succumbed to dehydration while others had been found after an aerial search that was initiated after the family of the Saudi reported him missing. Four men are still missing and possibly dead. “The passengers and the car were spotted on Friday 70 km south of Hada district,” said a Civil Defense statement.
“The smuggler and the other passengers were in bad shape after they ran short of water. Two Yemenis were found dead, eight others and the driver were rescued. A search continues for those who were missing in the desert,” it added.
As is often the case, the reason why the men were trapped in the desert was due to vehicular failure — in this case the off-road vehicle had become irreparably stuck.
Renya Desert, situated between Riyadh and the western region's most populous cities, is a popular transit route for illegal immigrants and their Saudi traffickers seeking to avoid roads and checkpoints.
“Most of the bodies found in Renya Desert are of people trying to travel between cities and avoid passport authorities,” the Civil Defense said in its recent announcement.
According to official numbers, approximately 50 bodies have been recovered from the desert since 2005. It is widely believed that many other bodies have never been found.
In the same period of time, 1,521 human traffickers and about 189,000 illegal immigrants were apprehended in this desert. The few people living in the desert are mostly Bedouin shepherds based in the occasional small village. (It is often the shepherds who discover the stuck or broken-down vehicles and their living or dead passengers.)
Some illegal immigrants who have been caught in this region claim that smugglers abandon them in the desert, but for the most part it seems the smugglers simply get lost, or encounter trouble with their off-road SUVs. Without any sense of direction, people might venture away from their cars to certain death.
Others stay with the cars, hoping that a shepherd will spot them from a distance and investigate, or (in the case of Saudis) that loved ones will report them missing in time for a search-and-rescue operation.
Then the water runs out.
— With input from Muhammad Humaidan
