Muhyadin Ahmed Roble, AfricaNews reporter in Nairobi, Kenya
March-31-10
At least one hundred and twenty five illegal Somali immigrants have been deported from Saudi Arabia and returned back to Mogadishu, officials and witnesses at the Aden Ade airport in Mogadishu have said.
The deported people who were mostly youth were arrested last month, according to sources in Mogadishu airport who pleaded anonymity.
One of the deported people told officials in the airport that Saudi Arabian police tortured him. The man who fled from the war in Mogadishu was arrested a day after reaching in Saudi Arabia and jailed for one month before his deportation.
“They beat me like a criminal, I am not criminal, I only came to seek for a safe place,” the man said.
Somalis used to travel to Yemen on their way to Saudi Arabia and also use Libya as a stepping stone to Europe for looking for better life.
The Al-shabaab hardliners linked to Al-Qaeda controls most of southern Somalia while the weak Somali government backed by western countries runs only a little of the country.
The fighting in Somalia has killed over 19,000 Somalis since 2007 and 1.5 million people displaced inside the country while another 560,000 civilians have registered as refugees in neighbouring countries. Somalia is one of the world's worst humanitarian emergencies.
Source: Africa News