Over 150 Somali migrants deported from Saudi Arabia have landed at Aden Adde International Airport in Mogadishu.

Most of the expelled people, who arrived in the Somali capital on Friday, were Somali teenagers who tried to escape the war-torn country, a Warsheekh broadcaster reported.

Abdullahi Aden, one of the deportees, told Warsheekh websiter that Saudi authorities had forcibly sent them back to Somalia.

“We had fled a desperate situation of civil war, political instability, poverty, and famine in Somalia and the Horn of Africa, but unfortunately, we were captured by the Saudi police force in operations they conducted in Jeddah,” Aden said.

He expressed concern over the long, unsafe journey Somalis take to reach Yemen before heading toward Saudi Arabia.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Yemen receives 14,000 refugees annually.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

Over the past two decades, up to one million people have lost their lives in fighting between rival factions and due to famine and disease.

More than 1.4 million people have been internally displaced in Somali, and 300,000 are sheltered in Mogadishu.

In 2009, Somalis were the third largest group seeking asylum with more than 22,000 claims, after Iraqis and Pakistanis.