Saudi Arabian police and troops accused of killing Ethiopians at Yemen border

Saudi police and troops have been accused of killing hundreds of Ethiopians trying to enter the kingdom from Yemen’s remote and rugged border region.

A Human Rights Watch report, entitled They Fired On Us Like Rain, covers the period between March 2022 and June 2023, and contains testimony from 38 Ethiopian migrants on shootings and targeting with explosive devices. The report contains satellite images, videos and photographs “gathered from other sources”.

“All interviewees described scenes of horror: women, men, and children strewn across the mountainous landscape severely injured, dismembered or already dead,” Human Rights Watch reported.

On the number of deaths, lead author Nadia Hardman told the BBC: “We say a minimum of 655, but it’s likely to be thousands.”

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She added: “We have factually demonstrated that the abuses are widespread and systematic, and may amount to a crime against humanity.”

Thousands of men, women and children fleeing conflict and poverty risk perilous Red Sea journeys from the Horn of Africa to war-torn Yemen where they engage smugglers to guide them along the 1,390km route to Saudi border crossings. While in north Yemen many are detained in grim internment camps by rebel Houthi militiamen who collaborate with traffickers.

Many of the estimated 750,000 Ethiopians in Saudi Arabia – of whom 450,000 are illegal migrants – have travelled along this dangerous route. Last year the Saudi and Ethiopian governments agreed to repatriate 100,000 Ethiopians

The report claims that Saudis shoot at migrants who decide to return to Yemen, while those who have crossed into the kingdom face abuse, death and injury. It includes witness testimony of corpses and graves on the roadside.

Human Rights Watch has recorded migrant deaths at the Yemeni-Saudi border since 2014, but said the killings documented in the report appear to have escalated from “an apparent practice of occasional shootings and mass detentions” to a deliberate large-scale government policy.

This impression is reinforced by interviewees who testified that armed and uniformed Saudi guards patrol the border area in cars or armoured vehicles equipped with rocket launchers and cameras mounted on “streetlamps” which track the migrant flow.

Human Rights Watch urged Riyadh to end the use of force against migrants and called on the United Nations to investigate. Ms Hardman said: “If there is no justice for what appear to be serious crimes against Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers, it will only fuel further killings and abuses.”

The Saudi foreign ministry did not reply to a query about the report.

An unnamed Saudi government source told Agence France Presse the allegations “are unfounded and not based on reliable sources”.