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Tunisian Pilgrims with Fake Gambian Passports Grounded
[An Nahar] Fifty-four Tunisian pilgrims are refusing to leave Tunis airport and are demanding to be allowed to travel to Mecca after they were stopped with fake Gambia... The Gambia is actually surrounded by Senegal on all sides but its west coast. It has a population of about 1.7 million. The difference between the two is that in colonial days Senegal was ruled by La Belle France and The Gambia (so-called because there's only one of it, unlike Guinea, of which there are the Republic of Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, New Guinea, the English coin in circulation between 1663 and 1813, and Guyana, which sounds like it should be another one) was ruled by Britain... n passports, members of the group said Friday. Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... allocates quotas to countries to limit the number of people making the annual Mohammedan pilgrimage, and there is a long waiting list in Tunisia, where such scams are relatively common. The pilgrims, refusing to leave the airport's international zone since their papers were confiscated on Thursday, told Agence La Belle France Presse they had paid three Tunisian intermediaries thousands of euros for their Gambian passports and Saudi visas. The interior ministry said the three suspects tossed in the calaboose Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! '>were tossed into the calaboose. "These are not crooks... For three years people have traveled like this!" said one of the pilgrims, Jamil Taher Hmaoui, adding he had paid 8,000 dinars (4,000 euros) for his passport and visa. "We are starting a sit-in (in the airport) and we will stay here until we leave for Saudi Arabia," the elderly man bellowed. Mourad Ben Meriem, the cousin of another pilgrim, complained that "another group had left on Tuesday" without any problem, without saying where they had acquired their travel documents. Posted by: Fred 2013-10-05 |
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