Tigrayans Deported From Saudi to Ethiopia Detained, Abused - HRW

Ethiopian authorities have arbitrarily detained, mistreated, and forcibly removed thousands of ethnic Tigrayans who were recently deported from Saudi Arabia, Human Rights Watch has said. The lobby group has urged Saudi Arabia to stop holding Tigrayans in abhorrent conditions and deporting them to Ethiopia, and instead help the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees by providing them with international protection.

Nadia Hardman, a refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, has said that Tigrayan migrants who have experienced horrific abuse in Saudi Arabian custody, are being kept in detention facilities on their return to Ethiopia.

Various factors, including unemployment and other economic difficulties, drought, and human rights abuses, has driven hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians to migrate over the past decade, travelling by boat across the Red Sea and then by land through Yemen to Saudi Arabia.

In January 2021, the Ethiopian government announced it would cooperate in the repatriation of 40,000 of its nationals detained in Saudi Arabia, beginning with 1,000 returnees per week. Between November 2020 and June 2021, 40% of the returnees were Tigrayan.

Conflict between the Ethiopian government and Tigray has been raging since November 3, 2020, when long-standing tensions between the federal government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) came to a head when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched a military operation in Tigray that he described at the time as a "law and order operation".

The prime minister accused the TPLF of targeting government military units and holding illegal elections in Tigray. The conflict triggered threats of international sanctions after the Ethiopian government suspended some aid organisations and reports of human rights violations emerged.