Tag: Saudi Arabia

Saudi-fathered children living in Syrian refugee camps

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

According to this story in Arab News, Saudi men went to Syria in recent years (for what?), fathered children and then abandoned the new wife and child.  Those ‘wives’ and children (who are Saudi nationals) are living in refugee camps.

Kids in Jordanian refugee camp. Which ones are Saudis?
http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/english/2013/09/nearly-two-million-syrian-children-have-dropped-out-of-school-unicef/

By the way, we have reported many times recently that Saudi Arabia takes no refugees and is in fact busy with un-diversifying (is that a word?) itself, here.  No multiculturalism for S.A.!

Arab News (emphasis is mine):

Local human rights organizations are demanding that government agencies track down the Saudi biological fathers of children born to Syrian women who have since become refugees in Jordan and Turkey in the wake of the Syrian civil war.

These citizens-turned-refugees have no documents to prove that they are Saudi nationals.

“Many Saudis visited Syria before the Syrian revolution and married Syrian women, with whom they had children. These children were abandoned by their fathers and now face uncertain future after the war in Syria,” said Mohammed Al-Turkawi, a member of the Syrian opposition living in Jeddah.

“These families should contact the Saudi embassies in Jordan and Turkey to find solutions.”
“There are no accurate figures on the number of undocumented Saudis living in Syrian refugee camps in Jordan and Turkey,” Al-Turkawi told Arab News. A local newspaper reported that the Saudi Embassy in Amman confirmed that it was taking care of local Saudi refugees.

According to the report, the embassy pays monthly sums to 26 Saudi families in Jordan and ensures that they are sheltered. The report also states that they are looking for their fathers with the cooperation of several Kingdom-based organizations.

Yet many of these men deny ever having been married.

“It is a shame to know that there are Saudis out there who have been abandoned by their fathers and who have no choice but to live with their mothers at these refugee camps,” said Suhaila Zain Al-Abdeen, a female Saudi member of the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR).

This little nugget at the end was interesting.  After all the belly-aching from surrounding countries to which the Syrians have fled, there is an economic bright side (who knew!).

While some view the Syrian refugee crisis as a burden on the country’s infrastructure and scarce natural resources, such as water, many Jordanian commercial and industrial representatives regard the refugee phenomenon as the driving force behind new local economic opportunities.

Saudi Arabia deported 12,000 Somalis since the first of the year, says Human Rights Watch!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Farhia, deported from Saudi Arabia last month, says she was a domestic worker there for ten years.

I gotta hand it to ‘Human Rights Watch’ which seems to be the only private or public sector organization with the nerve to call-out Saudi Arabia.

The UN (where S.A. sits on the Human Rights Council) has been silent while it has been busy blasting Israel for its supposed mistreatment (“warehousing”) of Africans.   Israel is not deporting thousands weekly and detention in Israel is in a new cushy facility where the would-be asylum seekers can leave for a portion of the day.

Saudi Arabia is clearing out its ethnic diversity!  I guess they aren’t buying that multiculturalism is beautiful PR, or that they need to be charitable to their Muslim coreligionists.

Saudi Arabia for Saudis!

From Human Rights Watch:

(Nairobi) – Saudi authorities have deported more than 12,000 people to Somalia since January 1, 2014, including hundreds of women and children, without allowing any to make refugee claims. Saudi Arabia should end the summary deportations, which risk violating its international obligations not to return anyone to a place where their life or freedom is threatened or where they face other serious harm.

Seven Somalis recently deported from Saudi Arabia told Human Rights Watch researchers in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, that the Saudi authorities had detained them for weeks in appalling conditions and some said Saudi security personnel beat them. None had been allowed to speak with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to discuss possible refugee claims before being deported. UNHCR said in mid-January that “south central Somalia is a very dangerous place.” UNHCR also said the Saudi authorities have denied its staff access to detained Somalis in the country.

They don’t want those undocumented foreign workers!  Are there jobs Saudis won’t do?  Maybe not!

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) says the Somali Interior Ministry expects Saudi Arabia to deport another 30,000 in the coming weeks. The deportations are part of a Saudi campaign to remove undocumented foreign workers.

We will be anxiously waiting for the Obama Administration and the UN to blast those racist unwelcoming Saudis!

Saudi Arabia has not ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention and does not have an asylum system.

[….]

Major donors to UNHCR, including the European Union and the United States, should press Saudi Arabia to end its deportations of Somalis.

Meanwhile, another boat load of Somalis was rescued at sea this week and taken to Italy where you know all hell would break loose and the UN would blast those Mediterranean countries if they dared deport even one of the Somali illegal aliens.

Refugee resettlement a controversial issue among “humanitarian workers”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Saudi Arabia deports hundreds of Ethiopian asylum seekers daily. http://ethiopianewsforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=67724

Holy cow!  Did you know that!  Did you know that some “humanitarian workers” believe that the drawbacks to resettlement outweigh the advantages?  That is what “Relief Web” says in this stunning admission.

And, shock of shocks they criticize Saudi Arabia for ‘welcoming’ NO refugees.

Relief Web (skipping down through the section which says how it helps refugees, gets them out of danger, etc).  Emphasis is mine:

And yet resettlement is a controversial issue amongst humanitarian workers, a significant proportion of whom consider that its drawbacks equal or outweigh its advantages. The resettlement process, they argue, is labor intensive, expensive, and increasingly slowed by the extensive security checks undertaken by resettlement countries.  [US relaxed security checks this week!—ed]

Furthermore, because the demand for resettlement places is so much higher than the supply, bribery and corruption can easily arise in the refugee selection process. It is often suggested that those refugees chosen are not the most vulnerable, but rather the most entrepreneurial and assiduous in navigating the procedure. [Like the Chacha family!—ed] And even those people often find that the going is tough when they arrive at their destination, unfamiliar with its language and culture.

Finally, critics of resettlement point to the fact that so few countries are prepared to make this solution available to the world’s refugees. In the Syrian context, for example, countries such as the U.S. and UK are under mounting pressure to resettle refugees from politicians, advocacy groups and the media.

We, at RRW, suggest resettlement in Saudi Arabia and rich Gulf states all the time!

Yet few people have even raised the possibility of resettling Syrian refugees in nearby Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. As Amnesty International recently pointed out, members of the Gulf Cooperation Council “have not offered a single resettlement to refugees from Syria.” Indeed, far from welcoming refugees, Saudi Arabia recently expelled a massive number of foreigners, including 200,000 from Yemen and 150,000 from Ethiopia, two countries which are poorly placed to absorb such an influx.

Coincidentally? Our second most visited post this week is this one from earlier in January about Saudi Arabia deporting their fellow Muslims—Somalis.   Our most-read post this week was on Wyoming considering opening its doors to Muslims from Africa and the Middle East (among others).  Wyoming thinks it will control who comes to Wyoming—no it won’t, the US State Department and its contractors decide.

Waiting for the UNHCR to blast Saudi Arabia as they did Israel yesterday

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
African migrants protest at US embassy in Tel Aviv on Sunday. We want the “right” to walk free and stay in Israel.

Sure enough the UN High Commissioner for Refugees blasted Israel for its “warehousing” of Africans claiming to be asylum seekers (see our story yesterday).  Israel has long maintained that most of the migrants are “economic migrants” and not legitimate refugees.  Economic migrants are NOT refugees, but the world-over they have figured out how to use the refugee lingo.

From Haaretz:

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has criticized Israel’s policy on African migrants, and in particular the new amendments to the country’s anti-infiltration law.

Following Sunday’s mass protest of tens of thousands of migrants and their supporters in Tel Aviv, the representative for UNHCR in Israel published a rare press release, calling on Israel to consider alternatives to its current “warehousing” of migrants.

The release was titled “Israel’s new laws and policies do not live up to the Spirit of the 1951 Refugee Convention.”

UNHCR has previously criticized the amendments to the anti-infiltration law, and even brought its position before the High Court of Justice, but, until now, has refrained from making public statements. In the press release published Sunday, the agency said that in principle it supports establishing a residence facility for asylum seekers, but not in its current incarnation at Holot.

Meanwhile I searched around to see if the UNHCR was also blasting one of the newest members of the UN Human Rights Council, Saudi Arabia, for deporting (not just warehousing but actually deporting!) thousands of Somalis on a regular basis.  I see in 2010 the UN did call out S.A., but am not seeing anything since and obviously the Saudis didn’t listen to the UNHCR nearly 4 years ago.

Waiting!  Waiting!

Photo is from this story about Africans protesting at US embassy in Tel Aviv.  Wouldn’t those get-ups just make the average Israeli say, sure you will fit right in here!  Maybe such protests would work its magic on the Saudis too!

Saudi Arabia deports 200 more Somalis who were only seeking a better life

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update January 6:  Reader Petzix sent us the website ‘UN Watch’ with a story on the ten worst things the UN did in 2013, check it out here.  Ha! Ha! Ha! Saudi Arabia elected to the UN Human Rights Council!

They just ship them back and drop ’em off in Mogadishu.    Meanwhile the UN bullies Bulgaria to be more welcoming to Syrian Muslims and berates Burma for being unwelcoming to Rohingya Muslims, not a critical peep though about Muslim Saudi Arabia being unwelcoming to fellow Muslims.  The double standard is stunning!  No ‘diversity is beautiful’ for the Saudis!

Bye! Bye!

Every time I see one of these stories I’m reminded of the UNHCR saying in 2009 that the tradition of welcoming refugees comes out of the Islamic faith! From Mareeg:

Mareeg.com-More than 200 Somalis deported from Saudi Arabia have reached Mogadishu’s Aden Abdulle Airport on Friday. The people deported mostly young men and women were members of Somali immigrants who have travelled to the Kingdom of Saudi Srabia to seek better life and work following the civil wars in their homeland.

Some of those deported back to Mogadishu have said they were tortured and mistreated by the Saudi police while some of the people were detained for more than one month.

The country’s civil aviation authoroties said that more than two thousands Somalis were deported back to the country since September.

Just imagine for a moment the worldwide wailing and crying if the US deported 2,000 Somalis in three months! Photo is from this story—we will give Somalia money, but we don’t want your people!  (the article doesn’t say that, I do).