Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Saudi Arabia Urged To Stop Deporting Somali Immigrants

The United Nations, Somalia government officials and some top Somali rights groups called on the authorities of Saudi Arabia to halt the deportation of illegal Somali immigrants from its territory, reports MISNA.

Based on estimates of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), in the month of July almost 300 Somalis, who entered Saudi Arabia illegally, were deported back to Mogadishu, while as many as 4,000 Somalis had been deported from the country over the previous year.

“Nobody should deport people to Mogadishu because it is sending them back to a deadly situation”, UNCHR Information Officer Roberta Russo told the UN IRIN news network.

A similar call arrived also from Somalia’s minister for Reconstruction and Social Affairs, Mohammed Omar Daha, who formally called on Saudi authorities to help the Somalis fleeing from the conflict as other countries have done.

A call came also from Somali rights groups to change policies adopted in the last months against illegal Somali migrants, stressing that once these migrants are returned to Mogadishu they are often alone, since their families fled the city from the persisting insecurity and daily fighting between government forces and insurgents.

MISNA

MISNA (Missionary International Service News Agency) provides daily news ‘from, about and for’ the 'world’s Souths', not just in the geographical sense. Journalistically, the news agency – which is often described as ‘alternative’ or as providing ‘counter-information’ – has the primary aim of integrating and sometimes also ‘correcting’ the ‘genetically modified information’ put into circulation by large global news systems that have a different perception of the world.

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