20,000 foreign workers detained in Makkah

Saudi authorities have detained more than 20,000 foreign migrant workers in the holy city of Makkah since a nation-wide clampdown started, pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat reported Wednesday. Saudi authorities began their sweep last week after the end of a seven-month amnesty for foreign migrants whose work permits had expired or who were not working for their official sponsors.
"The number of those detained ... since the start of the corrective security campaign in Mecca has reached 11,962 male and 8,927 female offenders, mostly of Ethiopian, Egyptian, Yemeni and Indonesia nationality," police spokesman Colonel Badr Al Saud told the newspaper.