A total of 22 Ghanaians including one male have arrived in Ghana after being deported from Saudia Arabia within the past week. The deportees arrived at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) on board Ethiopian Airlines.
“The deportees, comprising one (1) male and twenty one (21) females aged between 21 and 38 years and working as domestic helps and a driver were deported for staying illegally,” a news release by the Ghana Immigration Service said.
The statement signed by Assistant Superintendent of Immigration, Barbara Sam, Public Relations Officer stationed at KIA, said the people arrived with Travel Certificates Issued by Ghana’s Embassy in Saudi Arabia.
It 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. They told immigration officers in Ghana that they were detained at a Deportation Centre in Saudi Arabia close to four months before their onward deportation to Ghana. Regional distribution of the Deportees: one each from Oti, Volta, Bono, Western, Central and Upper East regions. Six from the Greater Accra, six from the Northern, and four from the Ashanti Regions.
“Narrating their ordeal in an interview, some of the ladies said 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.
“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.”
Recalling her ordeal, 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 GIS statement cautioned the general public to beware of connection men, who will lure them into the “seeming juicy deals” and non-existing jobs.
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