The United Nations said on Monday that deportations of illegal migrant workers by Saudi Arabia to Ethiopia risked spreading the coronavirus and it urged Riyadh to suspend the practice for the time being, APA reports citing Reuters.
Saudi Arabia has so far deported 2,870 Ethiopian migrants to Addis Ababa since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the U.N. migration agency said. Ethiopian authorities confirmed that large-scale deportations were taking place.
An internal U.N. memo seen by Reuters said Saudi Arabia was expected to deport some 200,000 Ethiopian migrants in total. Other Gulf Arab states, Kenya and other neighbouring countries are also expected to repatriate Ethiopian migrants, it said.
“Large-scale migratory movements which are not planned make the transmission of the virus much more likely to continue. We are therefore calling for the temporary suspension of large-scale deportations,” Catherine Sozi, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Ethiopia, told Reuters.
The Saudi media ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but many migrant workers worldwide have been left unemployed due to economic lockdowns imposed by governments in an effort to stem the spread of coronavirus.
Saudi Arabia, which has around 30 million people, has so far reported 4,934 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, with 65 deaths.
Ethiopia, with a population of 105 million, has so far reported only 74 coronavirus cases and just two deaths.
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