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| More than 500 women from Jeddah airport are to be deported |
Nigeria has
suspended all Hajj flights to Saudi Arabia after the authorities there deported
more than 170 women who had arrived without a male escort.
About 1,000
Nigerian women intending to make the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca have been
detained since Sunday.
A Nigerian
government delegation is going to Saudi Arabia to complain.
There has
been an understanding in the past that Nigerian women are exempt from
travelling with a male relative - a requirement for women on the Hajj.
Nigerian
diplomats say the agreement between the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria and
the Saudi authorities allows visas to be issued for Nigerian women going to
Mecca as long as they are accompanied by Hajj committee officials.
BBC Nigeria
correspondent Will Ross says it is not clear if this action was taken as part
of an effort to clamp down on people entering Saudi Arabia illegally to work.
'Victimised'
Since
Sunday, hundreds of Nigerian women - mainly aged between 25 and 35, according
to Nigerian diplomats - have been stopped at the airports in Jeddah and Medina.
Bilkisu
Nasidi, who travelled from the northern Nigerian city of Katsina, told the BBC
that hundreds of women had been sleeping on the floor, did not have their
belongings and were sharing four toilets at the King Abdulaziz International
Airport in Jeddah.
She said
she was part of a group of 512 women being deported to five states in Nigeria
on Thursday.
With many
of them now facing deportation, she said the atmosphere at the airport was not
good, and the women felt "victimised".
The main
problem was that their surnames did not correspond with those of their husbands
or male guardian on the visa documentation, she said.
It is a
common practice for Muslim women in Nigeria not to take their husband's name.
"Honestly
both governments are to blame, ours and theirs. They're telling us that our
government has been aware of what are the requirements for the visa application
and granting our visas," she told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme
"We're
not happy about the situation - other than the Hajj we would not be interested
in coming back to Saudi Arabia but unfortunately it is the holy land to us
Muslims and we will have to look beyond the treatment and come back."
Nigeria's
vice-president met the Saudi ambassador to Nigeria on Wednesday and gave him a
24-hour ultimatum for the situation to be resolved, the BBC's Chris Ewokor
reports from the capital, Abuja.
The
deportations have heightened concerns that the situation is threatening to
develop into a diplomatic showdown, he says.
Nigeria's
speaker of the house of representative is leading a government delegation - to
include the foreign affairs minister - to Saudi Arabia in an attempt to resolve
the situation.
More than
two million Muslims are due to converge on Mecca for this year's Hajj, which is
set to culminate over a four-day period somewhere between 24-29 October
depending on lunar observations.
The Hajj is
one of the pillars of Islam, which every adult Muslim must undertake at least
once in their life if they can afford it and are physically able.
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