Some 250 persons gathered at the Egyptian Consulate in Jeddah Sunday seeking deportation home due to fears that the torrential rains that struck the city recently may return to cause further loss of life and damage to property. The boisterous crowd voiced their wishes for deportation also citing fears that Jeddah's Misk Lake sewage reservoir may collapse. “I have been staying near the consulate for several days trying to get an exit visa,” said Nabawyia Ali, who has been sleeping on the street outside. “I'm scared the rains will come back and that more people will be killed.” Zainab Abdul Maqsoud, another Egyptian woman, said she lost her passport during the rains but for 15 days had found no help in addressing her situation, while Muhammad Ramadan said he applied for an exit visa before Eid Al-Adha. “The holidays are over and the consulate has still done nothing, so I'm staying here until something is done,” Abdul Maqsoud said. General Consul of Egypt Ali Al-Ashiri said that the Egyptians were mostly illegal residents who had overstayed the validity periods of Umrah visas and that they caused an annual bureaucratic headache further exacerbated this year by the hazardous weather. “Unfortunately some of them take to sleeping in the streets to try and pressure officials into hastening their departure,” Al-Ashiri said. Al-Ashiri noted that the consulate provided accommodation at its own expense for hundreds of pilgrims, with 100 currently housed at Jeddah's Pilgrim City under a reduced-cost agreement with the Saudi government. A further 250 remain living elsewhere. “Overstayers exploit the chance to do the pilgrimage to be in the Kingdom. Some have now gone to the Halat Ammar land crossing on the border with Jordan, and others have gone to Diba Port in Tabuk,” Al-Ashiri said. “The issue has a security dimension, and every year we try to handle it as calmly as possible by asking pilgrims to stay at Pilgrim City. Those who respond to the request have their housing paid for,” he said.
