Since last year, Saudi border guards have used “explosive weapons” against Ethiopian migrants seeking to enter the Gulf nation through Yemen, according to a report released by Human Rights Watch on Monday.
The charges, which Riyadh did not immediately address, indicate a notable increase in abuses along the dangerous “Eastern Route” from the Horn of Africa to Saudi Arabia, where hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians reside and work.
“Saudi officials are killing hundreds of migrants and asylum seekers in this remote border area out of view of the rest of the world,” HRW researcher Nadia Hardman said in a statement.
“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.”
The New York-based group has documented abuses against Ethiopian migrants in Saudi Arabia and Yemen for nearly a decade, but the latest killings appear to be “widespread and systematic” and may amount to crimes against humanity, it said.
Last year, UN experts reported “concerning allegations” that “cross-border artillery shelling and small arms fire by Saudi Arabia security forces killed approximately 430 migrants” in southern Saudi Arabia and northern Yemen during the first four months of 2022.
A request for comment from AFP went unanswered from Saudi officials, and the HRW report claimed that letters it addressed to the Saudi interior and defense ministries, the human rights commission, and the Huthi rebels that rule northern Yemen received no reaction.
Saudi officials organized a coalition to overthrow the Huthis in 2015 after they had taken Sanaa from Yemen’s internationally recognized government the year before.
The United Nations describes the humanitarian situation in Yemen as one of the worst in the world as a result of the fighting there.
But despite formally ending last October, a truce that went into effect in April 2022 and has largely held would have seen many of the crimes HRW describes happening throughout that time.
