Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a report on Monday accusing Saudi Arabian border guards of systematically murdering hundreds of Ethiopian migrants between March 2022 and June 2023. HRW noted that if the allegations are proven, they would constitute a “crime against humanity.”
The report accused Saudi border guards of using gunfire and explosives to kill Ethiopians as they sought to cross the Saudi border from Yemen – a “dangerous migration route” known as the “Eastern Route” or “Yemen Route” that crosses the Horn of Africa and Gulf of Aden, as the HRW report explained.
About 90 percent of the migrants using the Eastern Route are Ethiopians, mixed with some Somalis and Eritreans. Migrants described the route as “rife with abuse” from smugglers and criminal gangs, who prey on the migrants for protection money and worse.
The route also runs through territory controlled by the Iran-backed Houthi insurgents of Yemen, who are brutal toward the passing Africans. In one notorious incident, the Houthis set fire to an immigration center under their control.
Ethiopian migrants said the Houthis divided them into tribal groups, which were kept in different camps, and then demanded bribes to get them into Saudi Arabia with the aid of smugglers. Those who could not pay were treated harshly – and sometimes forced to march ahead of migrant groups as unwilling scouts, because the Houthis knew the Saudi border guards might open fire on them.
Ethiopians fleeing the violence and poverty in their own country often choose Saudi Arabia because it has a large population of Ethiopian migrants and the Saudi kingdom is a rich country that seems like it would offer many opportunities for work. In truth, Saudi Arabia has been struggling with unemployment lately, especially among the young.
HRW noted that about 750,000 Ethiopians are living in Saudi Arabia. Up to 400,000 of them are in the country illegally. In March, the Saudi and Ethiopian governments made an agreement to deport about 100,000 Ethiopian migrants, assisted by the U.N. International Organization for Migration (IOM). The Saudis committed to $11 million in “post-arrival assistance” for the deportees, while Ethiopia appealed to international donors and U.N. agencies for funding.
HRW interviewed Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers who said Saudi border guards have been using deadly force to turn them away. Migrants often rush the border in groups of 200 or more, so the Saudi guards would hit them with “mortar projectiles and other explosive weapons.”
Some of the Ethiopians who spoke to HRW said they observed other migrant groups being decimated by such attacks. Others described returning to the scene of deadly strikes to recover the corpses.
“First I was eating with people and then they were dying. There are some people who you cannot identify because their bodies are thrown everywhere. Some people were torn in half,” one survivor said.
Smaller groups attempting to cross the border said the Saudi guards would sometimes fire at them with rifles, and other times would apprehend them for sadistic torment.
“Interviewees describe being apprehended by armed border guards and asked in which limb of their body they would prefer to be shot and then the border guard would shoot this limb. People also described guards beating them with rocks and metal bars,” HRW’s report said.
HRW said it backed up these accounts with video and photographic evidence, including satellite photos of the Saudi-Yemen border region. The satellite images showed “dead and wounded migrants on the trails, in camps and in medical facilities,” and “how burial sites near the migrant camps grew in size.”
Researchers interviewed survivors of border attacks in Yemen camps, including “many people who lost one or more limbs as a result of explosive weapons or shootings at the border and remain stranded in Yemen with limited or no health care and resources to leave.”
HRW enlisted another group, the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, to examine injured and dead migrants and confirm their injuries came from “the explosion of munitions with capacity to produce heat and fragmentation.”
The BBC on Monday interviewed Ethiopian migrants who described “terrifying night-time crossings during which large groups of Ethiopians, including many women and children, came under fire as they attempted to cross the border in search of work in the oil-rich kingdom.”
“I didn’t even notice I was shot, but when I tried to get up and walk, part of my leg was not with me,” said a 21-year-old survivor who is now back in Ethiopia, walking with crutches and a prosthetic limb.
“They beat us, killed some and took those who survived to the hospital. The bodies of those killed were left scattered on the ground. I was shot between my thighs near my groin, and my legs are paralyzed now. I can’t even walk. I thought I would die,” another migrant testified.
“There has been no international mechanism mandated to monitor rights violations in Yemen, including abuses against migrants, since the United Nations Human Rights Council-mandated Group of Eminent Experts, was disbanded in 2021 following pressure on Council member states from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates,” HRW said.
The report pointedly noted that Yemen’s Houthis “play a significant role in perpetrating abuses against migrants along this migration route,” including “torture, arbitrary detention, and trafficking in persons.”
“Saudi officials are killing hundreds of migrants and asylum seekers in this remote border area out of view of the rest of the world,” charged HRW refugee and migrant rights researcher Nadia Hardman.
“Spending billions buying up professional golf, football clubs, and major entertainment events to improve the Saudi image should not deflect attention from these horrendous crimes,” Hardman said.
A Saudi government source on Monday dismissed HRW’s allegations as “unfounded and not based on reliable sources” in an interview with Agence France-Presse (AFP). The Saudi government did not respond to a letter from HRW.
The Houthis did respond to a request for comment from the human rights organization, insisting they do not work with “criminal” smugglers and denouncing the “deliberate killings of immigrants and Yemenis” by Saudi border forces.
The U.S. State Department took note of the HRW report on Monday and said it has “raised our concerns about these allegations with the Saudi government.”
“We urge the Saudi authorities to undertake a thorough and transparent investigation and also to meet their obligations under international law,” the State Department said.
The Ethiopian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday it will “promptly investigate the incident in tandem with the Saudi Authorities.”
The Ethiopian government hailed its “excellent longstanding relations” with Saudi Arabia and advised observers to “exercise utmost restraint from making unnecessary speculations” until “the investigation is complete.”