Rights group accuses Saudi Arabia of killing, abusing migrants

Human Rights Watch has accused Saudi Arabian border guards of killing hundreds of Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers who tried to cross the Yemen-Saudi border between March 2022 and June 2023.

The 73-page Human Rights Watch report on Monday alleged that Saudi border guards have used explosive weapons to kill many migrants and shot other migrants at close range.

The deaths included many women and children, in a widespread and systematic pattern of attacks.

“If committed as part of a Saudi government policy to murder migrants, these killings, which appear to continue, will be a crime against humanity,’’ the report said.

The watchdog called on concerned countries to press for accountability and the UN to investigate.

Recent investigations by HRW indicated that the killings were still taking place.

Eyewitnesses told the human rights activists about corpses strewn along the migration route.

“When the Saudi security officials see a group (of migrants), they shot continuously,’’ one of the survivors said, according to HRW.

Asylum seekers and migrants said the migration route between Yemen and Saudi Arabia was rife with abuse and under the control of traffickers.

It is estimated that well over 90 per cent of the migrants on the dangerous eastern route from the Horn of Africa via the Gulf of Aden.

They were come from Ethiopia through Yemen to Saudi Arabia.

In spite of the civil war, migrants continued to come to Yemen with the aim of reaching neighbouring Saudi Arabia to find work.

Yemen has been roiled by a devastating power struggle between the government and the Houthi rebels, who seized the capital Sana’a and other areas since late 2014.