The Regional Command of the Ghana Immigration Service at the Kotoka International Airport, (KIA), has confirmed the deportation of twenty two (22) Ghananians from Saudi Arabia on board Ethiopian Airlines flight.
The deportees, comprising one (1) male and twenty one (21) females aged between 21-38 years and working as domestic helps and a driver were deported for being in that country illegally.
They arrived with travel certificates issued by Ghana’s Embassy in Saudi Arabia.
In statement issued and signed by Assistant Suprimtendent of Immigration
Public Affairs Officer/KIA, Barbara Sam, on September 10, 2019 said: “The deportees, who are mostly Primary School, Junior High School (JHS) and Senior High School (SHS) leavers, have been in Saudi Arabia since 2015 and 2017.
Regional distribution of the Deportees are, one (1) each from Oti, Volta, Bono, Western, Central and upper East, six (6) from the Greater Accra, six (6) from the northern, and four (4) from the Ashanti Regions.
Narrating their ordeal in an interview, they said they were detained at a Deportation Centre in Saudi Arabia close to four (4) months before their onward deportation to Ghana”.
According to some of the ladies, their passports were seized by their hosts upon arrival claiming they owned it because they paid for it, and sometimes made to over work 24 hours, accused wrongly for crime they did not commit, assaulted, abused sexually and fed once a day with bread resulting in some complaining of severe stomach pains.
The Ghana Immigration Service, noted that, “one lady by name Georgina [not her real name] aged 25 also narrating her ordeal amidst tears said she had to escape whilst her host was out of town to seek refuge at Ghana’s Embassy in Saudi Arabia”.
She advised the youth to stay in the country and work and not to be overly interested in traveling, particularly to the Gulf States, because some don’t even live to tell their stories.
The public is also being advised to be beware of connection men, who will lure them into the “seeming juicy deals”, mentioning huge sums of money as the monthly pay which is non-existent.
Story filed by Edzorna Francis Mensah
