Vietnam arrests two in UK truck death investigation

Yahoo – AFP, 1 November 2019

Many of the 39 victims are believed to be Vietnamese after families said
their loved ones were missing

Vietnam police have arrested two people for trafficking in connection with the death of 39 migrants whose bodies were found in a truck in Britain, many of them feared to be Vietnamese.

The move comes after British police arrested four people over the tragedy and are now seeking to question two brothers from Northern Ireland who have links to the road-haulage and shipping business.

The victims were initially identified by British police as Chinese, but many are now believed to be Vietnamese after families in central Vietnam said their loved ones had not been heard from.

Vietnam said Friday two people were arrested for alleged involvement in the case, which has exposed the dangers of illegal people-smuggling from the Asian country to Europe.

Many of the suspected victims came from central Ha Tinh province, where the two arrests were made in connection with "the case of 39 dead bodies found in a container truck in the UK", according to a statement on the local police website.

The pair were accused of "organising and brokering for other people to go abroad and stay abroad illegally", it said.

The bodies of the victims were found in a refrigerated trailer on October 23 in an industrial park in Essex, east of London. Police said the truck came from a Belgian port.

The 25-year-old driver of the truck, Maurice Robinson from Northern Ireland, has been charged with 39 counts of manslaughter.

He was also charged with conspiracy to traffic people, conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration, and money-laundering.

Prosecutors said he was involved in an international trafficking ring as he appeared in court this week.

Three others who were arrested have been released on bail.

Several Vietnamese families said they heard from relatives before their crossing into the UK but have had no contact since.

Vietnam has said Britain sent documents to help with the complicated task of identifying the bodies, many of whom were believed to be carrying falsified passports.

DNA samples have also been taken from relatives in Vietnam to help with the process.

But so far none of the dead have been officially identified.

The truck tragedy has plunged communities in central Vietnam into mourning, as families desperately wait for news.

The region has long been a source of illegal migration to Britain for people seeking better lives.

Migrants often work in nail bars or cannabis farms, heavily indebted and vulnerable to exploitation.

British detectives probing the deaths of 39 Asian migrants in a refrigerated truck near London renewed their appeal for two brothers in the haulage business to help with the investigation https://t.co/YZlaMa3sCq

— AFP news agency (@AFP) 1 november 2019

North Korean defector mothers struggle in South

Channelnewsasia – AFP, 4 Sep 2019

North Korean defector Lim is one of hundreds of North Korean single mothers
in the South, struggling to make ends meet (Photo: AFP/Jung Yeon-je)

SEOUL: When Lim reached South Korea, she thought she had left behind the miseries of poverty and an unwanted marriage for a better life with her daughter.

She is one of more than 33,000 North Koreans - the vast majority of them women - who have fled to the South from hardship and repression in their homeland, where the Kim dynasty has ruled with an iron fist for three generations and stands accused of widespread human rights abuses.

The transition to a radically different, democratic and capitalist society - while juggling work, school and motherhood - is not easy. "Life in South Korea was the complete opposite of what I had expected," Lim said.

Nine years after arriving she still struggles to make ends meet, one of hundreds of North Korean single mothers in similar situations.

Their plight was highlighted by the case of Han Sung-ok, who had difficulties keeping jobs while caring for her epileptic six-year-old son. Their bodies were found in a Seoul flat two months after they are believed to have died from starvation.

The death of North Korean defector Han Sung-ok and her six-year-old son
sent shockwaves across South Korea (Photo; AFP/Jung Yeon-je)

News of the deaths sent shockwaves across the country last month and triggered an unprecedented campaign by the defector community urging Seoul to overhaul its aid programme for North Korean refugees.

"Han fled North Korea, where scores of people die from starvation, only to starve to death in South Korea," said campaigner Heo Kwang-il.

'VICIOUS CYCLE'

The vast majority of North Korean migrants go first to neighbouring China before making their way to the South.

As the oldest daughter, Lim - who asked to be identified by her surname only - left home at 24 to provide for her family but like many others was trafficked and sold to an abusive Chinese man, with whom she had a child.

After four years of what she described as "imprisonment", Lim ran away with her toddler daughter to Seoul.

At first, she took odd jobs but with no one to help look after her daughter, Lim was forced at one point to put her into care and contemplated suicide, tormented by the guilt of not being able to provide fully for her child or her family in the North.

At times she doubted her decision. "Sometimes, I wanted to go back to North Korea," she told AFP in her tiny flat.

Nowadays, she works as a waitress and is sometimes able to send money to her family in the North via intermediaries, and has no regrets - but it has taken time.

Life in South Korea is riddled with cultural and economic challenges for all new arrivals from its neighbour - the two have been divided since the Korean War fighting stopped in 1953. But single mothers face further complications without a family support network.

"When they have to take care of a child, they end up seeking part-time, unstable jobs," said Kim Sung-kyung, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies.

"This starts a vicious cycle that holds them back from adjusting financially or finding stability."

'KOREAN DREAM'

The South Korean government provides newly arrived defectors a lump sum of around 8 million won (US$6,600) to help them settle.

They can seek additional aid but some give up, saying the system is too complex - especially if their education in the North has left them with limited literacy.

The transition to South Korea's radically different, democratic and capitalist society
is not easy for North Korean defectors, especially single mothers (Photo: AFP/
Jung Yeon-je)

Media reports say Han had sought help but was turned back by a district official who demanded legal papers to prove her status, which she could not provide.

"People come to the democratic South with the 'Korean Dream'" but many end up suffering from depression and other illnesses, said Lee Na-kyung, a defector activist for single parents and people with disabilities from the North.

Lee arrived with her husband - who has a disability - and their son in 2006 but was soon homeless after spending all their money on medical treatment.

She calls herself a "rare success story", saying her aggressive personality helped her settle in her new home, where she first worked as a gas meter reader and later became a humanities instructor.

The state has a pervasive role in North Korean society, where authorities impose extensive controls over individuals' lives, in marked contrast to the more individualistic South.

Many single mothers who come to the South "have no one to talk to and they feel cut off from the world", Lee said.

"They say even if they were poor in the North, they never felt isolated."

Backlash grows over contentious India citizenship list

Yahoo – AFP, September 1, 2019

A controversial citizenship list has left almost two million people facing
statelessness in India's Assam (AFP Photo/Biju BORO)

A controversial citizenship list in northeast India that has left almost two million people facing statelessness has been slammed by its political backers as those excluded from it face an uncertain future.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which runs Assam state where the National Register of Citizens (NRC) was collated, pushed for the list saying it was necessary to detect "foreign infiltrators".

Critics said the NRC process reflected the BJP's goal to serve Hindus, with a large chunk of those excluded expected to be Muslims.

But the strategy appears to have backfired with local BJP leaders claiming that many Bengali-speaking Hindus, a key vote bank for the party, were left off the list.

"We do not trust this NRC. We are very unhappy," Ranjeet Kumar Dass, BJP party president in Assam told the Press Trust of India late Saturday.

"Many people with forged certificates were included," Dass said, while 200,000 "genuine Indians" were left out.

Those left off have 120 days to appeal at special Foreigners Tribunals.

"If we see that FTs are delivering adverse judgements on the appeals by genuine Indian citizens... we will bring in legislation and make an act to protect them," Dass added.

A leader of the main opposition Congress Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said his party would support those who were wrongly excluded, including providing them with legal aid.

Assam has long seen large influxes from elsewhere, including under British colonial rule and around Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence when millions fled into India.

Under the NRC, only those who could demonstrate they or their forebears were in India before 1971 could be included in the list.

Assam villagers told AFP about family members who were excluded even though they had similar documents to their relatives.

"Our children's names are in the list but my wife's name is missing. She submitted all the documents and records... Why?," asked resident Jaynal Abudin.

Those left out, many of whom are poor and illiterate, have to navigate a long and expensive legal process that could include bringing their cases to the courts if they are rejected by a foreigner tribunal.

The NRC, which comes in the wake of New Delhi revoking the autonomy of Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state, has reinforced fears among India's 170 million Muslim minority that they are being singled out by the central government.

The BJP has previously said it wants the NRC to be replicated nationwide.

Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari on Saturday called for the list to be applied in the capital, saying it was needed to identify illegal immigrants.

Graves prepared as New Zealand looks to bury mosque massacre dead

Yahoo – AFP, Jerome TAYLOR, March 17, 2019

People in Christchurch lay flowers in tribute to those killed in Friday's attack (AFP
Photo/Marty MELVILLE)

Dozens of graves were being dug in a Christchurch cemetery on Monday for the 50 worshippers killed in two mosque attacks, as families clamoured for the return of their dead.

Coroners said they hoped to let grieving relatives fulfil Islamic burial customs soon, but insisted they had to move carefully through their investigation into the horrific multiple murder.

As New Zealand grappled to come to terms with the slaughter -- the worst attack on Muslims in a Western country -- tales of heroism, suffering and incredible grace emerged.

Farid Ahmad, whose 44-year-old wife Husna was killed as she rushed back into a mosque to rescue him, refused to harbour hatred toward the alleged gunman, Australian-born, self-avowed white nationalist, Brenton Tarrant.

"I would say to him 'I love him as a person'," Ahmad, who uses a wheelchair, told AFP.

Asked if he forgave the 28-year-old suspect, who is being held in custody after appearing in court, he said: "Of course. The best thing is forgiveness, generosity, loving and caring, positivity."

Residents pay their respects by placing flowers for the victims of the mosques attacks

 in Christchurch at the Masjid Umar mosque in Auckland on March 17, 2019 (AFP Photo/

Michael BRADLEY)

Husna Ahmad was among four women believed to have been killed by Tarrant, who documented his radicalisation and two years of preparations in a lengthy, meandering and conspiracy-filled far-right "manifesto".

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said her office and some 30 other officials had received the document by email about nine minutes before the attack.

"It did not include a location, it did not include specific details," she said, adding that it was sent to security services within two minutes of receipt.

Around Christchurch, New Zealand and the world there have been vigils, prayers, memorials and messages of solidarity.

"We stand together with our Muslim brothers & sisters" were the words on a large red banner, above a sea of flowers at one of the sites in what one resident dubbed the "city of sorrow".

An emotion-filled haka -- the Maori war dance -- was performed by a New Zealand biker gang to honour the Christchurch dead.

Police forensic officers are carrying out painstaking work at the Dean Avenue 

mosque (AFP Photo/Marty MELVILLE)

The country remained on high alert, with police on Sunday briefly closing an airport in the southern city of Dunedin -- where Tarrant had lived -- after an unidentified package was spotted on the airfield. The airport reopened a few hours later.

Generations

Islamic custom dictates that the dead should be buried within 24 hours, but strained authorities, desperate to make sure no mistakes are made or the complex investigation harmed, said a quick process was difficult.

"All of the deceased have had a CT scan, their fingerprints are taken, the property they were wearing or had with them is removed," said Chief Coroner Deborah Marshall, adding that dental impressions were taken and post-mortems performed.

Ardern said she expected all the dead would have been returned to their families by Wednesday.

An AFP reporter early Monday saw workers and excavators preparing dozens of graves in a cemetery in Christchurch though it was unclear when any funerals might start.

There has been an outpouring of grief in the wake of the attack (AFP Photo/

Marty MELVILLE)

"It's a massacre, what else do they need to know?," said school principal Sheikh Amjad Ali, expressing frustration over the wait for loved ones' remains.

The dead from Friday's attack span generations, aged between three and 77, according to a sombre list circulated among relatives.

Some victims came from the neighbourhood, others from as far afield as Egypt. At least two of the dead came from the same family -- a father and son.

Delhi said Sunday that five of its nationals were killed, while Pakistan said nine of its citizens were among the dead, including one man who died trying to rush Tarrant.

Four-year-old

Authorities said 34 people remained in hospital.

Gestures of sympathy have been made all around the world since Friday's 

horrifying attack (AFP Photo/Salty Dingo)

Among those fighting for their lives is four-year-old Alin Alsati. The pre-schooler was praying alongside her father Wasseim at the Al Noor mosque when she was shot at least three times.

Her father, who was also shot, recently emigrated to New Zealand from Jordan.

"Please pray for me and my daughter," he pleaded in a Facebook video message from his hospital bed before undergoing surgery.

The number of dead and injured could have been higher, were it not for people like Afghan refugee Abdul Aziz.

Aziz was at the Linwood mosque with his four sons when he rushed the attacker armed with the only weapon he could find -- a hand-held credit card machine.

Afghan refugee and local resident Abdul Aziz chased the gunman with the only weapon 

he could find -- ahand-held credit card machine (AFP Photo/Anthony WALLACE)

He then picked up an empty shotgun discarded by the gunman and shouted "come on here" in an effort to draw him away from his sons and the other worshippers.

"I just wanted to save as much lives as I could, even if I lose my life," he told AFP.

Gun policy on agenda

The mosque attacks have shaken this usually peaceful country, which prides itself on welcoming refugees fleeing violence or persecution.

Later Monday Ardern will gather her cabinet to discuss changing the country's gun laws.

That could include a ban on semi-automatic weapons of the type used by Tarrant. A series of reform attempts in recent years have failed.

Ardern also wants answers from social media giants over the livestreaming of the carnage.

Facebook said it had removed 1.5 million videos of the attack around the world in the first 24 hours.

Kiwis say they will not be beaten by the horror that was visited on them by a lone 

gunman (AFP Photo/MICHAEL BRADLEY)

After days of lockdowns and security warnings, police have urged Kiwis to go back to their normal business.

When they return to work and school on Monday however, they will find a high police presence, said commissioner Mike Bush.

Related Articles:

#UPDATE New Zealand will tighten its gun laws in the wake of its worst modern-day massacre, the government said Monday, as it emerged the white supremacist accused of carrying out the killings at two mosques in Christchurch will represent himself in court https://t.co/ptiKYSrqwy pic.twitter.com/GH2Z9lnzNl

— AFP news agency (@AFP) 18 maart 2019

Afghan refugee Abdul Aziz is being hailed as a hero after he ran towards the attacker outside his mosque in Christchurch armed with the only weapon he could find -- a hand-held credit card machine https://t.co/qrYektTZXE pic.twitter.com/stwQCRgv8o

— AFP news agency (@AFP) 17 maart 2019

Students in #NewZealand perform a traditional Maori haka in tribute to the victims of the Christchurch shootings outside one of the mosques where the massacre took place pic.twitter.com/HNv09szqwM

— AFP news agency (@AFP) 18 maart 2019

Saudi asylum case prods Thais towards reform of tough refugee policy

Yahoo – AFP, Joe Freeman and Sophie Deviller, January 21, 2019

Thai authorities have signed an MoU to end the detention of all child refugees
and asylum seekers (AFP Photo/Romeo GACAD)

Bangkok (AFP) - On a television set in a grim, overcrowded Bangkok detention centre refugees closely followed Saudi woman Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun's quest for resettlement, as the 18-year-old asylum-seeker's case spurred hopes of a major policy turn from Thailand -- a country that does not recognise refugees.

Qunun fled her family to Bangkok, barricaded herself in an airport hotel room and staved off deportation with her Twitter feed, ultimately gaining refuge in Canada on January 12.

Thai authorities were initially caught flat-footed by the young Saudi's bold social media campaign.

But in the days since they have promised to address some of the lingering issues of indefinite detention and deportation of asylum seekers.

On Monday Thai authorities signed an MoU to end the detention of all child refugees and asylum seekers.

It was welcomed by the UNHCR as a "positive example" of the kingdom's increasingly humane approach to the issue.

Rights groups have for years condemned Thailand, which is not a signatory to the UN's convention protecting refugees, for its hostility to asylum seekers -- often trapping them on a carousel between detention and work in the black economy.

An estimated 900 adults remain in grubby immigration detention centres (IDCs) hoping to be resettled like Qunun but fearing an endless extension to their months, or years, of limbo.

Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun ultimately gained refuge in Canada after barricading
herself in a hotel room in Bangkok (AFP Photo/Cole BURSTON)

Nazir, a Pakistani-Christian in Bangkok's biggest IDC, said he watched Qunun's case unfold on the news, discussing the twists and turns with his wife over the phone.

He shook his head in amazement at the "days" it took for Qunun's refugee status to be determined by the UNHCR before Canada stepped in with the asylum offer, while he has been locked up for several months.

"My wife is alone with my daughter outside.. they are very sad," Nazir, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, told AFP.

Despite its hardline to asylum seekers, Thailand's lax visa rules, multiple entry points and graft-prone officials have made it an easy staging-post for those escaping conflict, persecution and poverty.

The kingdom wants that reputation to change.

But in the wake of Qunun's case immigration police chief Surachate Hakparn has also vowed to recalibrate the detention policy, saying the kingdom will no longer deport anyone "involuntarily".

Knocking the issue over to the UNHCR, which finds countries to resettle asylum seekers, Surachate says the agency must speed up its processes.

"Otherwise they have to live in anxiety and spend six to seven years (here)."

An estimated 900 adults remain in Thailand's grubby immigration detention
centres (AFP Photo/Romeo GACAD)

'Holding on' 

At the end of 2018 there were around 1,000 asylum seekers in Thailand compared to more than 7,000 in 2014. The UNHCR cites the drop as evidence of faster processing of cases to resolve the backlog.

But less than one percent of the world's refugees are resettled each year while the number of places available "continues to decline", according to a UNHCR spokesperson.

Ahmed, a refugee from Somalia, was locked up at the Bangkok IDC with his brother.

Like Qunun, he too hopes to be resettled in Canada. But the similarities end there -- he has been in detention for four, long years.

"Nothing is moving forward," he told AFP."But we are holding on."

Others have given up hopes for resettlement.

Lama, a Syrian, fled the war-ravaged country four years ago while pregnant with twins.

She and her husband sold their belongings and bought a plane ticket to Thailand.

They obtained UN refugee status in 2017 but were placed in detention centres to await possible resettlement.

The monotonous, overcrowded life in the IDC wore them down and they decided to give up their quest for asylum in early January and head back to Syria.

"It's very hard to be here again," Lama told AFP from Damascus. "We never leave home (because of) security issues... but at least we are all together."

Shamim lives with her daughter in a Bangkok suburb while her husband remains

detained in an immigration centre (AFP Photo/Romeo GACAD)

 'So quick'

Inside the Bangkok IDC the fast-tracking of Qunun's case -- and the accompanying scrutiny of Thailand's immigration policy -- has offered a glimmer of hope for change.

In Nazir's case, he and his wife Shamim were granted UN refugee status three years after fleeing Pakistan when Shamin converted from Islam to Christianity and married Nazir in secret.

In Thailand they lived on the margins but enjoyed happy moments, including the birth of their daughter, until an immigration crackdown saw Nazir swept into detention for visa overstay.

His wife now lives with her daughter in a small one-room apartment in a Bangkok suburb, visiting Nazir every week.

The Saudi "case was so quick... (I have) never seen (anything like it) before. She is very lucky," Shamim said. "But our lives are being wasted."

Qatar easing of exit visa system comes into force

Yahoo – AFP, David HARDING, Oct 28, 2018

Foreign labourers leave the construction site of the Al-Wakrah stadium in
Doha, Qatar, after finishing work on May 4, 2015 (AFP Photo/
MARWAN NAAMANI)

Doha (AFP) - Long-awaited reform of Qatar's controversial exit visa system, which requires foreign workers to obtain their bosses' permission to leave the country, came into force on Sunday, the government said.

"Law No. 13 of 2018... regulating the entry, exit and residency of expatriates is being implemented starting today," the interior ministry announced on Twitter.

Qatar announced in September it had approved legislation to scrap the visa system -- a lynchpin of the country's "kafala", or sponsorship, system which many liken to modern-day slavery.

Under the new law, all but five percent of a company's workforce -- reportedly those in the most senior positions -- can leave without prior permission from employers.

Those not allowed to leave Qatar "for any reason" can file a complaint to the Expatriate Exit Grievance Committee that will "take a decision within three working days", the ministry said.

Some anxious workers took to government social media websites on Sunday, to ask how they could find out if they were among the five per cent.

Qatar's labour minister, Issa al-Nuaimi, said he was "exceptionally pleased" with the implementation of the new law.

"We are proud that the state of Qatar has become an example and a model for labour reform in the region," he told AFP.

Nuaimi added that Qatar wanted to give workers in the country, the "best standards possible".

Scrapping the exit permit is the biggest announcement made so far since Qatar agreed last November to enter into a three-year agreement with the UN's International Labour Organization (ILO) to oversee reform.

The ILO's Houtan Homayounpour, head of the labour agency's project office in Doha, said on Twitter that the reform "will have a direct and positive impact on the lives of migrant workers".

The football World Cup 2022 host has come under intense pressure to reform its labour laws, which have been repeatedly denounced by human rights groups.

Critics have long argued for abolition of the exit visa system.

Research published last year by rights group Migrant-Rights.org found around a quarter of all exit visa requests were denied by the government.

Vani Saraswathi, associate editor and director of projects with Migrant-Rights.org, said the reform was "long overdue and welcome", but added a warning.

"We have to be cautious about celebrating it as a huge development," she said.

"Passport confiscation is still rampant and the law also allows for employers to hold passports with the workers' permission."

She also noted that the law does not cover domestic workers, often seen as the most vulnerable.

Rights groups have argued that without the proper safeguards, relaxation of the visa system could lead to unscrupulous employers holding workers' passports.

A study earlier this year by Qatar University's Social and Economic Survey Research found that 53 per cent of migrant workers said their bosses held their passports.

There are some two million foreign workers in Qatar.

Iraq’s new finance minister was a refugee in the Netherlands

DutchNews, October 25, 2018

Hussein being interviewed on Kurdish media network Kudaw 

Iraq’s new finance minister Fuad Hussein was a refugee in the Netherlands for years before returning to his homeland in 2003, broadcaster NOS said on Thursday. 

Hussein, who is 69, fled Iraq in the 1970s and settled in the Netherlands. He studied at the VU University in Amsterdam, married a Dutch woman and worked for refugee rights. He is also a fluent Dutch speaker, the broadcaster said. 

Fourteen of the 22 ministerial candidates appointed by new prime minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi were approved by parliament on Wednesday evening. 

Hussein, who failed in his bid to become president at the beginning of this month, represents the Kurdish Democratic Party.

Five N. Koreans sail across tense border to S. Korea

Yahoo – AFP, July 1, 2017

South Korean ships patrol the disputed waters of the Yellow Sea (AFP Photo/
KIM JAE-HWAN)

Five North Koreans in a small boat crossed the sea border into South Korean waters Saturday, a Coast Guard official said, in an apparent bid to defect to the South.

The five people, including four men and one woman, have expressed their wish to live in the South as defectors, the Yonhap news agency reported.

"Coast guards guided the boat to safety at (the eastern port of) Mukho," a South Korean coast guard official told AFP.

Government authorities were questioning the five North Koreans, he added.

The incident came after a North Korean fishing boat with eight people on board developed an engine trouble and drifted into South Korean waters off the country's eastern coast late last month.

Days later, South Korea repatriated all the eight, as they had requested.

Early last month, two people out of four crew members on another North Korean fishing boat which drifted to the South refused to return home. They were allowed resettle in the South.

There has also been a spate of overland border crossings in June.

Two North Korean soldiers walked across the heavily fortified border and a civilian swam across a river to defect to the South.

Over the decades since the peninsula was divided, dozens of North Korean soldiers have fled to the South through the Demilitarised Zone, which extends for two kilometers either side of the actual border.

A North Korean soldier defected to the South in September last year, and a teenage North Korean soldier defected in June 2015.

In 2012 a North Korean soldier walked unchecked through rows of electrified fencing and surveillance cameras, prompting Seoul to sack three field commanders for a security lapse.

More than 30,000 North Korean civilians have fled their homeland but it is very rare for them to cross the closely guarded inter-Korean border, which is fortified with minefields and barbed wire.

Most flee across the porous frontier with neighbouring China.

Good times over for expats in Saudi

Yahoo – AFP, Ian Timberlake, February 24, 2017

Western expatriates participate in leisure activities at a compound in the Saudi 

capital Riyadh, on February 11, 2017 (AFP Photo/FAYEZ NURELDINE)

Riyadh (AFP) - Seventeen years after first setting foot in Saudi Arabia, Dominic Steck shipped his two cats and returned to Germany with his wife and school-age children, who hardly know their homeland.

As Saudi Arabia steps up efforts to employ more of its own people, and with economic growth slowing, the ranks of well-paid white-collar expatriates like Steck are thinning.

For them, the good times are over.

Steck said that to reduce costs, his employers "sent the Westerners" away.

"I have to admit, they will save a lot," he told AFP with a chuckle.

Cost-cutting, financial problems and a drive to employ more Saudis have all led to a noticeable reduction in expatriate employment as the Arab world's largest economy adjusts to lower crude prices.

Saudi Arabia, which exports more oil than any other country, since last year has pursued its "Vision 2030" economic diversification effort to broaden its investment and business base, while placing more Saudis in the private sector.

Almost nine million foreigners were employed in Saudi Arabia before 2014

 (AFP Photo/FAYEZ NURELDINE)

The drop in global oil prices by about half since 2014 left the kingdom with a huge budget deficit and billions of dollars in debt to private firms, chiefly in the construction business.

Saudi Binladin Group alone laid off around 70,000 expats from poorer countries, but the impact of slower economic growth has gone further and left many Western expatriates also saying goodbye.

Latest official figures showed almost nine million foreigners employed in the kingdom but that was before the worst of the economic pain struck, sending home expats like Steck.

"People are leaving because there's not enough business for their contract to be renewed," said a foreign manager in the consumer electronics sector whose business is down 10 percent.

"Everybody's margins are seriously under pressure. There's not a business out there that's really doing well," he said, declining to be named.

More pain is expected come July when the government plans to impose a levy on foreign workers with dependents.

The fee will start at 100 riyals ($27) a month, rising to 400 riyals monthly by 2020, according to a government document seen by Bloomberg News.

'So expensive'

The electronics manager said his company will make its nearly 300 expatriates, largely Indians, Pakistanis and Filipinos, pay these charges themselves.

With most of them earning less than 10,000 riyals monthly, this will encourage them to either send their families home or quit -- creating space for hiring Saudis, he said.

Saudi Arabia is pursuing its "Vision 2030" economic diversification effort which

aims to place more Saudis in the private sector (AFP Photo/FAYEZ NURELDINE)

According to the document seen by Bloomberg News, the government will also raise monthly fees paid by employers who hire more foreign workers than Saudis as part of a programme to encourage local hiring.

Abdulrahman al-Zamil, chairman of Saudi Arabia's Zamil Group which employs thousands of foreigners, said the government will continue to increase such fees if necessary "because they need to be fair to the country" and ensure jobs for locals.

The new levies add to rising costs including water and electricity bills as the government cuts subsidies, noted a foreign diplomat.

"The cost of doing business is so expensive," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Western expatriates, often more highly paid than their Asian or Arab counterparts, said they could afford the new family levies, but admit that the lucrative packages that drew them to the kingdom are becoming harder for companies to maintain.

These include housing allowances worth thousands of dollars each month, family flights home and, in many cases, international school fees.

There is no income tax in the kingdom although it plans to introduce taxes on some consumer items this year.

'Not as lucrative'

"Budgets are getting tighter and I don't think it's as lucrative as maybe it was" for expats, said an Australian engineer, lured to the kingdom with his family, partly out of a sense of adventure but also because of the financial benefits.

An expatriate working in Riyadh, waits for his flight at the King Khalid

International airport, on February 16, 2017 (AFP Photo/FAYEZ NURELDINE)

Three years later, he is going home, with his firm still "owed a lot of money" by its Saudi contractor.

"I've actually been made redundant but I was going to leave anyway," the engineer, who also declined to be named, said.

Dozens of expatriates of various nationalities had already been let go by his firm and others will follow, he said.

The Australian leaves with mixed feelings, having made friends and enjoyed his expatriate housing compound complete with a swimming pool and other diversions hard to come by in Riyadh, where alcohol is banned and there are no public cinemas or theatres.

A foreign fund manager with several years in the kingdom said the good times are over for expensive Western labour.

"In 10 years I don't think there will be expats, because they have to get the Saudis to work," he said.

The foreign diplomat said the departing workers were often replaced by less expensive hires including Portuguese, Greeks and, increasingly, Arab nationals.

Steck, who flew home in early February, had planned to stay another year.

He was the last of several Western managers let go by his firm.

The company, a subsidiary of a German multinational working for a major local telecommunication firm, had been under-bid by China's Huawei.

With a company car, the house and school fees all paid for, he had hoped for a final boost to his savings.

"Leaving, I'm happy, (but) not for my salary in the future," he said.

Related Article:

Women named to head Saudi bourse, major bank