December 6, 2002	Friday	Shawwal 1,1423

DUBAI, Dec 5: Mohammed Moussa risked life and limb to work in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates. It took the Bangladeshi half a year to complete the journey, often on foot and once hanging precariously from the bottom of a truck.

The 38-year-old and his companions, none holding travel documents, crossed rugged mountains and hid in boats to evade patrols along the porous borders of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Iran before reaching Dubai, the Gulf’s bustling trade centre.

They are among thousands of illegal immigrants who hand over their life savings to smugglers offering jobs in the Gulf Arab state, only to have their dreams shattered on arrival.

“I paid 120,000 Bangladesh takas ($2,074) to some people who promised to take me to the UAE and find me a job. But they left me when we reached the coast of the UAE,” Moussa told Reuters in his detention cell in a Dubai police station.

“I spent six months in the country trying to work at several jobs, but ended up begging near the mosques where I was arrested,” he said, speaking through an interpreter while other illegal aliens were fingerprinted ahead of deportation.

Dubai — one of seven emirates making up the UAE federation — alone captured nearly 9,000 people sneaking into the country last year, most of them from Pakistan, Iran, Bangladesh and India.

Illegal aliens are becoming a heavy burden for the UAE whose citizens are a shrinking minority in their own country. Foreigners comprise up to 85 percent of the 4.6 million population — the highest percentage in the Gulf region.

UAE President Sheikh Zaid bin Sultan al-Nahayan warned in a December 2 national day speech that the large expatriate community was a threat to the social fabric of the Muslim country.

DREAMS OF GOLD-PAVED STREETS: Lured by Dubai’s gleaming skyscrapers and multi-lane highways, workers mostly from the poor Indian subcontinent are filling menial jobs that nationals shun.

Many of the migrants work in the booming emirate’s numerous construction sites in temperatures that often soar to more than 45 degrees Celsius in the summer.

“This region is an attractive area for infiltrators because it is easy to find work here,” said Major General Sharafuddin al-Sayid Mohammad Hussein of Dubai Police.

“This makes them risk every danger to come to our country.”—Reuters