Smuggling Across the Saudi-Yemen Border
Yermen Times: SANA’A, August 11 — About 395,000 Yemenis seeking jobs opportunities failed to infiltrate the Saudi border over the last two years, according to report published in Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper last week.
The report, that was written by Saudi journalist Turki Al-Saheel, stated that “at least one Yemeni infiltrator is arrested every ‘five minutes’ in the border region.” The report said that there are dozens of would-be Yemeni infiltrators camped out along the border waiting for chance to enter into Saudi Arabia.
The phenomenon of Yemeni infiltration into Saudi Arabia is attributed to bad security and poor economic conditions in Yemen. Most of those wishing to cross the border are looking to work in Jizan province. It is considered a popular destination for Yemenis for several reasons including its geographic location.
The report revealed that some of the Yemenis arrested by Saudi authorities are very young. The ages of those arrested vary from 15 to 50, but the Saudi authority doesn’t hold them unless they were involved in other crimes such as smuggling. An official registry takes the fingerprints and data of those arrested before releasing them back into Yemen.
Lieutenant Colonel Salem Al-Shehri, head of the Department of Planning of the Saudi Border Guards in Jizan, told the Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper in the same report that if the infiltrator is caught for a second time, he will subject to a punishment as stipulated in the Border Security Regulations.
“Some infiltrators were using the floodwater drainage pipelines to cross into Saudi soil. This was something we were alerted to, and we acted accordingly,” said Al-Shehri.
The Saudi authorities has seized arms, explosives, ammunition, alcohol and drugs coming from Yemen into Saudi Arabia. The report stated that Saudi border guards have confiscated 3,600 bottles of whiskey, 6 million kilograms of qat, 4,086 kg of hashish and 387,000 narcotic pills. About 10,000 smugglers have been arrested since January 2008.
In addition to these smuggling and infiltration activities, the report revealed that there is a smuggling industry and trafficking of foodstuffs from Saudi Arabia into Yemen due to high prices in Yemen. Moreover, there have been foiled attempts to smuggle 80,000 head of cattle and 4,949 vehicles from Saudi Arabia to Yemen.
