3,000 RI workers returning from S. Arabia

JAKARTA: The government says it will soon bring home around 3,000 Indonesian migrant workers who are currently working in Saudi Arabia without official permits.

“We will deport [the illegal workers] using haj flights,” Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar said as quoted by Antara news agency.

The flights that will be used for the workers are the same ones that bring Indonesian haj pilgrims to Jeddah. After the planes drop off the pilgrims, the workers will be packed inside and returned to Indonesia.

According to Muhaimin, the 3,000 workers who would be sent home were those who were long considered “problematic”, with some of them living in tunnels or under bridges in Jeddah.

“God willing, there will be no single [illegal worker] left behind,” Muhaimin said.