The detention of hundreds of female Nigerian pilgrims heading to Mecca at Saudi Arabia's busiest airport over a rule requiring them to travel with a husband or male relative is threatening to bring a diplomatic dispute between the two nations.Saudi authorities are holding 908 Nigerian women in poor conditions "with some needing urgent medical attention" at King Abdulaziz Airport in Jeddah and threatened to deport them, the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria said in a report submitted to Nigerian lawmakers Wednesday.
The report said female pilgrims who had landed in a smaller airport in Medina had been unaffected.
However, Fuwaiba Muhammad, a pilgrim, told an Associated Press reporter at Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport in the northern Nigerian city of Kano that she had been deported Wednesday from the Saudi Arabian city of Medina, along with dozens of others.
Uba Mana, a spokesman for the National Hajj Commission, said no pilgrim had been deported by Saudi authorities yet, but that the commission had asked for female pilgrims who did not meet the Saudi immigration officials' requirements to temporarily be brought back to Nigeria to avoid deportations.