{"id":332529,"date":"2017-06-28T16:15:20","date_gmt":"2017-06-28T16:15:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=332529"},"modified":"2017-06-28T16:15:20","modified_gmt":"2017-06-28T16:15:20","slug":"ethiopia-asks-for-extension-of-saudi-amnesty-deadline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=332529","title":{"rendered":"Ethiopia asks for extension of Saudi amnesty deadline"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Thousands of Ethiopians are still stuck in Saudi Arabia after a 90-day amnesty for undocumented migrants expired on Tuesday without all of them leaving , the Ethiopian government has said.<\/p>\n<p>Communications Minister Negeri Lencho told the BBC that the government has asked for the amnesty to be extended.<\/p>\n<p>He said more than 45,000 citizens had so far returned but there were many more waiting to go back home.<\/p>\n<p>Ethiopians have been employed in Saudi Arabia in building and domestic work.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Negeri said that the government was expecting &#8220;a positive response&#8221; from the Saudi authorities for its request to extend the amnesty.<\/p>\n<p>In March 2017 the Saudi interior minister, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Naif bin Abdulaziz, announced the amnesty under a campaign called &#8220;A nation with no legal violator&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>During this period any one in breach of the country&#8217;s residency and labour rules or regulations would be free to leave without facing any penalties.<\/p>\n<p>In 2013 a similar amnesty was announced, however any illegal migrant who did not leave Saudi Arabia had to face punishment by way of fines, prison or being deported.<\/p>\n<p>During that time a number of Ethiopians were killed in clashes with the Saudi police as they were being rounded up for deportation.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef-1.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/4148\/production\/_96721761_illegalsdepart.jpg\" alt=\"Illegal migrants sit on the roof of a police bus with their belongings on November 13, 2013 before being transferred to a center in the capital Riyadh ahead of their deportatio\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"media-caption__text\">Illegal migrants were deported from Saudi Arabia in 2013<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Mr Negeri says that there was a slow uptake during the amnesty period because some people were sceptical the Saudi authorities would take action during the just ended period of Ramadan.<\/p>\n<p>Minister Negeri added that a taskforce and money has been set aside to receive and resettle the Ethiopian returnees.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thousands of Ethiopians are still stuck in Saudi Arabia after a 90-day amnesty for undocumented migrants expired on Tuesday without all of them leaving , the Ethiopian government has said. Communications Minister Negeri Lencho told the BBC that the government has asked for the amnesty to be extended. He said more than 45,000 citizens had [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[8092,202,3,8713],"class_list":["post-332529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international","tag-amnesty","tag-ethiopia","tag-ghana-news","tag-saudi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=332529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332529\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=332529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=332529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=332529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}