Saudi Arabia: A prominent rights group has stated that Saudi Arabia’s border guards have engaged in a large-scale and brutal killing of African refugees and migrants at its borders with Yemen.
In a report published recently, Human Rights Watch (HRW) noted “widespread and systematic” abuses committed by Saudi border guards against mostly Ethiopian refugees who flee armed conflict, economic hardships, and droughts in their homelands. The nongovernmental organisation remarked that hundreds, and likely thousands, have been murdered by Saudi border guards between March 2022 and June 2023, and killings are continuing.
According to the report, witnesses said they were targeted by firearms, explosives, artillery, and mortar shelling from Saudi border guards when trying to cross. Some saw dozens killed in front of their eyes, while others experienced serious injuries like amputations or saw refugees arrested.
A male minor interviewed by HRW said border guards detained their group of five men and two 15-year-old girls after killing many others and ordered the men to rape the girls. One man refused, and he was shot and killed on the spot.
“Saudi Arabia’s abuses against migrants and asylum seekers, committed historically and detailed more recently in this report, have been perpetrated with absolute impunity. If committed as part of a Saudi government policy to murder migrants, these killings would be a crime against humanity,” HRW said in its report, for which it interviewed dozens of Ethiopians and analysed videos, photographs, and satellite imagery.
According to the New York-based group, a network of smugglers, traffickers, and authorities has for years kidnapped, detained, and beaten Ethiopian refugees in Yemen and extorted them or their families, mostly displaced women and children in dire straits themselves, for money.
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