Saudi Gazette report JEDDAH — A total of 22,500 illegal Yemenis all over the Kingdom have corrected their residence status since an amnesty for the community started on May 10. Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman issued a royal order to help all illegal Yemenis who have been residing in the Kingdom before April 9 obtain papers to stay and work in the country legally. According to Maj. Gen. Daifullah Bin Sattam Al-Huwaifi, deputy director of the Directorate General of Passports (Jawazat), as many as 1,422 Yemenis have corrected their status in the Eastern Province. He said the Eastern Province's Jawazat corrects the status of 3,000 to 3,500 Yemenis daily. The correction status will continue until July 7 and will also include prisoners and those with criminal records. Under the correction procedures, each Yemeni will be issued with a six-month renewable “visitor's card” that will enable its holder to take jobs in the private sector. Brig. Mohammed Zahir Al-Shihri, director of Jawazat in Jazan, said 2,000 Yemenis have corrected their status in the southern city as of Sunday. Mohammed Zabibah, chief of the Yemeni community in Najran, said 300 Yemeni inmates have corrected their status inside their prisons. Meanwhile, Khaled Bahhah, deputy president of Yemen, opened in the Yemeni Consulate in Jeddah on Sunday a special center to expedite the processing of documents required for status correction. He said the center, named “Restoration of Hope”, would process the papers of about a million Yemenis residing illegally in the western region of the Kingdom. Mazen Batterjee, deputy chairman of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry who attended the function, said the center would receive about 8,000 people an hour. He said the center, which was established in 48 hours, is manned by 150 diplomats to serve illegal Yemenis as quickly as possible before the amnesty expires in 50 days. Ali Al-Ayyashi, consul general of Yemen in Jeddah, said diplomats work about 16 hours daily to process the documents of applicants. As of Sunday, the consulate issued more than 90,000 new passports for Jeddah-based Yemenis, of whom 15,000 have so far corrected their status.
