Visiting Saudi Arabia for the annual Hajj pilgrimage, the women have been stuck for days at Jeddah and Madinah airports. The Saudi action breaches an agreement that allowed Nigerian Muslim women to enter the country without a male relative. The Saudis fear a rise in illegal immigration.

Makkah (AsiaNews/ Agencies) - Concerned about illegal immigration, Saudi authorities have stopped a thousand Nigerian women on their way to Makkah for Hajj.

Ostensibly, the women had violated an Islamic rule whereby each woman had to be accompanied by a male relative. However, the authorities waved through women 45 and over, stopping only those aged 20 to 35, who, for the past ten days, have been waiting to be repatriated at the airports in Jeddah and Madinah.

Nigeria's ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Abubakar Shehu Bunu, said he had made a formal protest to the foreign affairs office in the capital, Riyadh.

He complained about the discriminatory treatment given to Nigerian women pilgrims and the violation of an agreement between the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria and the Saudi authorities to allow visas to be issued to Nigerian women going to Makkah as long as they were accompanied by their local Hajj committee officials.

For their part, Saudis complain that the agreement has for years favoured illegal immigration. In fact, many Nigerian women come into the country for Hajj but end up looking for work, often falling into the prostitution racket.

• saudi
• arabia
• nigeria
• hajj
• illegal
• immigration
• pilgrims