Harare — Saudi security forces are killing, shelling, and abusing groups of migrants, according to a Human Rights Watch report. And President Biden's administration, according to The New York Times, was informed in 2022, but it chose not to raise the problem publicly.
The U.S. diplomats received more information in December, according to the report, when United Nations officials briefed them about Saudi security forces shooting, shelling, and abusing migrants, leaving many of them dead or injured, according to U.S. officials and a person who attended the meetings. All those whom spoke did so on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.
The HRW report is based on interviews with migrants and their friends and family, images and videos, and satellite images of the border region.
"Saudi border guards have killed at least hundreds of Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers who tried to cross the Yemen-Saudi border between March 2022 and June 2023, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. If committed as part of a Saudi government policy to murder migrants, these killings, which appear to continue, would be a crime against humanity," read the report.
According to a 73-page report titled "They Fired on Us Like Rain': Saudi Arabian Mass Killings of Ethiopian Migrants at the Yemen-Saudi Border," Saudi border guards have carried out a widespread and organized campaign of attacks in which they have killed numerous migrants using explosive weapons and shot many more at close range, including many women and children.
Saudi Arabia is home to about 750,000 Ethiopians who work there. Many people move for economic reasons, but some have also left Ethiopia due to grave violations of their human rights, notably during the recent, terrible military conflict in the north.
The HRW has been recording the deaths of migrants at the Saudi Arabian and Yemeni borders since 2014, but the killings now seem to represent a purposeful uptick in both the quantity and style of targeted killings.
Asylum seekers and migrants claimed they travelled across the Gulf of Aden in unsafe boats before being transported by Yemeni traffickers to the bordering Saudi Arabian province of Saada, which is currently governed by the Houthi militia.
Many claimed Houthi soldiers collaborated with smugglers and would extort them or send them to what migrants described as detention facilities where they would be mistreated until they could pay a "exit fee".
The HRW has, however, called upon governments to openly demand answers and impose sanctions on Saudi and Houthi officials who have been proven to be involved.
