TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Indonesian government will repatriate 482 citizens who are residing in Saudi Arabia without proper documents. Muhamad Iqbal, the director of Indonesian citizens’ protection and legal aid at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that they were currently at the immigration detention center in Jeddah. "Their exit permits have been processed by the local authority," he said during a press briefing at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs office in Jakarta on Thursday, January 15, 2015.
According to Iqbal, the government has prepared a Garuda Indonesia flight to repatriate the overstayers and they will arrive on Monday, January 19. "We will use a Boeing-747 plane," he added. The ministry arranged a flight to bring back these citizens because there has been an accumulation of Indonesian overstayers in Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, most flights are fully booked because of the Umrah season.
Previously, repatriation of 703 illegal workers in Malaysia was done on December 22 and December 23, 2014. In cooperation with the Malaysian government, they were brought back to Indonesia with six Hercules aircrafts.
On December 17, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has instructed the ministry to bring back illegal workers and overstayers. As of now, there is an estimated 1.8 million Indonesians without staying permits, around 70 percent of them are in Malaysia and Saudi Arabia. "But we don't have the exact data, they are non-procedural [immigrants] after all," said Iqbal.
AMANDA SIDDHARTA
