Manama: Saudi Arabia security authorities have launched a massive manhunt to recapture dozens of detainees who had made a daring escape.
Around 70 foreigners, mainly Ethiopians, had made a hole in the wall of a detention centre in the capital Riyadh and escaped, a prison official has said.
“They smashed the hole in the wall in the centre in the Murabba area in Riyadh and escaped, but we were able to catch 25 of them,” Abdullah Al Harbi, the spokesperson for the general directorate for prisons said. “We are now working on finding the remaining ones,” he said, quoted by local news site Sabq late on Thursday.
Sources said that the detainees were mainly people who were staying illegally in the kingdom and who did not regularise their situation during the amnesty period granted last year to all foreigners.
A large number of security servicemen were seen around the detention centre and in neighbourhing areas looking for the men who had escaped.
Saudi Arabia set up the detention centre as part of a process to repatriate thousands of foreigners who had overstayed their residence permits or entered the country illegally.
In November, identity checks by the police looking for illegal foreigners in the Manfouha area in Riyadh sparked riots and confrontations in which at least three people, including one Saudi, were killed and scores of shops and cars were damaged.
Thousands of expatriates were accommodated in special shelters after they said they wanted to go back home following the end of a seven-month amnesty for foreigners staying illegally in Saudi Arabia to formalise their situation and strict warnings of a zero-tolerance policy towards those who did not take advantage of the grace period.
Detention centres were set up to hold those who were unwilling to go home, but caught in routine raids. However, their repatriation process had been slowed down by the absence of formal travel documents from the expatriates.
