Alarm over expats outnumbering Saudis in Jubail and Jeddah

June 16, 2016

Jeddah, Jun 16: Expatriates outnumber Saudis in some parts of the country, including Jeddah and Jubail, according to statistics released by the Public Statistics Department.

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According to the report published in local media on Wednesday, the population of Saudi Arabia at the end of 2015 was 31.5 million, with Saudis standing at 21.1 million or 67 percent, while expatriates were at 10.4 million or 33 percent.

In Jubail in the Eastern Province there were 205,000 Saudis and 243,000 expatriates, and in Jeddah 1.9 million Saudis and 2.13 million expatriates. In Alghat in Riyadh, the number of expatriates at 8,158 was close to that of Saudis at 8,800.

Mohammad Alsubaei, president of the Ethar Forum for Research and Social Studies, said the increase in the number of expatriates in Jubail and Jeddah was alarming and would affect the country on the social, economic and cultural fronts.

He said plans must be put in place under the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 to balance the numbers especially with the launch of Jubail 2 and the Industrial City in Ras Al-Khair. He said there was currently significant diversity in Jubail’s shopping malls, streets and restaurants, and in the manner in which people dress.

Alsubaei said Jeddah must be protected from the growth in the non-Saudi population because it threatens the identity of the city. He said plans must include having less mixing of Saudis with foreigners coming for work, Haj and Umrah.

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News Network
November 10,2024

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The media office in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli regime has been waging a genocidal war since last October, says as many as 188 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the onset of the brutal military onslaught.

The office provided the figure on Saturday, naming four journalists as the most recent victims of the onslaught.

It identified the foursome as Zahraa Mohammad Abu Sukheil, Ahmad Mohammad Abu Sukheil, Mustafa Khadr Bahar, and Abdel Rahman Khadr Bahar.

The office said it “strongly condemns the targeting, killing, and assassination of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli occupation and holds it fully responsible for committing this heinous crime.”

“We call on the international community, international organizations, and those involved in journalistic work worldwide to take action against the occupation, pursue it in international courts for its ongoing crimes, and pressure it to halt the genocide and the targeted killings of Palestinian journalists,” it said.

Earlier in the day, the office said the Israeli regime had bombed the tents sheltering journalists and displaced persons at the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza for the ninth consecutive time.

The atrocity that claimed the lives of two people and injured 26 others came as part of “the genocidal crimes committed by the Israeli occupation army against hospitals, civilians, and displaced persons,” it said.

The media office held the regime and the United States, its biggest ally, as well as other countries aiding the genocide fully responsible for such systematic crimes.

At least 43,552 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed and 102,765 others wounded since the launch of the war that followed a retaliatory operation by Gaza’s resistance groups.

The fatalities include 44 people, who were killed across the coastal sliver, in the most recent phase of the military onslaught.

As many as 24 of the victims were killed in the northern part of the territory, where the regime has markedly intensified its deadly attacks for weeks.

They included an eight-year-old child and a five-year-old one, who lost their lives after Israeli warplanes targeted a group of minors filling up jerry cans with water alongside their mother at the Jabalia Refugee camp.

Gaza’s heath ministry, meanwhile, said a number of victims remained under the rubble and in the streets following Israeli airstrikes, saying ambulances and civil defense teams could not reach them due to the sheer extent of the destruction caused by the raids and obstruction caused by the regime.

Also on Saturday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, a United Nations-backed assessment, warned that famine was looming in northern Gaza amid escalated Israeli aggression and the regime’s near-total siege of the targeted areas.

The alert from the Famine Review Committee warned of "an imminent and substantial likelihood of famine occurring, due to the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip."

On October 17, the body projected that the number of people in Gaza facing "catastrophic" food insecurity between November and April 2025 would reach 345,000, or 16 percent of the population.

The IPC report classified that figure as Phase 5 -- a situation when "starvation, death, destitution, and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident."

The Israeli military, however, questioned the report's credibility.

"To date, all assessments by the IPC have proven incorrect and inconsistent with the situation on the ground," the army said in a statement, denouncing "partial, biased data and superficial sources with vested interests."

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