13-year-old boy beats Saudi port security

Saudi authorities are investigating how a 13-year-old boy managed to sneak through its western port of Jeddah and travel across the Red Sea to Sudan without a passport, a local newspaper reported on Sunday.

The unidentified boy was accompanying a Sudanese man in his sea trip to Khartoum, where he was stopped and handed over to the Saudi embassy, the Arabic language daily Okaz said.

The embassy brought the boy back to Saudi Arabia and handed him to authorities, who contacted his father.

“The angry father refused to take him back, prompting authorities to place him at a social centre…officials then took the boy to the Jeddah Islamic Port so he can show them how he managed to bypass security checkpoints.”

The paper said police were also investigating the motives of the Sudanese for taking the boy to Khartoum, adding the man is a resident of Saudi Arabia.