Saudi Arabia’s state-driven border killings of migrants as potentially crimes against humanity, and nearly ten months after the reports that uncovered these atrocities and the worldwide exposure that followed, the deaths and injuries still occur.
Saudi Forces accused of deadly border crackdown
According to fresh information, Ethiopians and Yemenis who cross the border unlawfully continue to be randomly fired at by the Saudi border guards at their southern border with Yemen. This update report makes the case that even while the crimes being perpetrated are horrific and deadly, we should all be troubled by the degree of inactivity and impunity in the face of widespread exposure and criticism. For a while now, organizations keeping an eye on violations against migrants traveling from Ethiopia and other parts of the Horn of Africa to Saudi Arabia via the “Eastern route” have known that interactions with Saudi border police may result in beatings, sexual assaults, detention, and ultimately deportation[1]. However, studies revealed a concerning shift in the last few years. In 2022, when researching returnee migrants in Ethiopia to determine the number of migrants who vanished and the frequency of human trafficking along the Eastern route, refugees’ testimony frequently mentioned fatalities and injuries near the Saudi/Yemen border. The Eastern route is notorious for its high rate of deaths, disappearances, illness, and accidents that are frequently caused by abuse, extortion, and exploitation at the hands of traffickers, smugglers, and the military.
Hundreds dead in Saudi Arabia’s war on migrants
The endless, horrific experiences of Ethiopian migrants in transit along this route are detailed in recent reports like Captive Commodities (2023) and Transit in Hell (2023), as well as reports published more than ten years ago like the 2019 Human Rights Watch report Hostile Shores and the 2012 RMMS (MMC’s predecessor) report Desperate Choices. However, the purposeful and direct detonation of explosives by Saudi border guards using highly caliber weaponry, resulting in death and maiming, is an unprecedented and, as of 2022, an undocumented and unique misuse along the Eastern route. Although many were surprised by these dramatic disclosures, the Mwatana for Human Rights organization, situated in Yemen, has been gathering evidence of Saudi Arabia’s intentional targeting and shelling of sites used for gathering migrants within Yemen, but near the border, since 2019. Multiple eyewitness accounts of indiscriminate assaults by “Saudi border guards and Saudi/United Arab Emirates (UAE)-led coalition forces” on migrants while they were still inside Yemen between 2019 and 2023 are documented in a special chapter (Chapter 1) in their 2023 report. Nonetheless, many of the migrants who died crossing the border were Yemenis as well as Ethiopians. Forensic analyses of Yemeni corpses repatriated to Yemeni morgues by Saudi officials have shown instances where severe torture occurred prior to demise.
Saudi Arabia’s border bloodshed
According to a little-known media outfit called Saudi Leaks, the IOM accused the Saudi government of carrying out many murders against African migrants on the Yemeni border by specifically targeting them for execution with heavy machine guns and artillery. More than 1,000 migrants were hurt or died as a result of intentional targeting between January and August, according to reports from IOM partners and the local community. This press release was not taken up by any rights agency or media. A message was released by a number of UN Special Rapporteurs and Working Groups to draw attention to claims of small-arms fire and cross-border artillery bombardment. Between 1 January and 30 April 2022, 430 migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers were allegedly killed and 650 injured in Sa’dah governorate, Yemen, and Jizan province, Saudi Arabia, by actions purportedly carried out by Saudi security forces. “A systematic pattern of large-scale, indiscriminate cross-border killings, using artillery shelling and small arms fire by Saudi security forces against migrants, including refugees and asylum seekers, and victims of trafficking,” according to the communication’s accusations.
Saudi Arabia’s deadly secret exposed
One 18-year-old migrant claimed to have witnessed several “severely wounded migrants who had been shot at while trying to cross the Saudi border” during his three months of forced housing at a location where traffickers assemble people close to the border. “Suddenly, we heard loud gunfire, as if it was being fired on us,” said another, who returned after being apprehended and subsequently deported in March 2024. “A moment later, many wounded migrants descended off the mountain to escape from the firing of guns by Saudi border guards who were on the merkez’. The majority of the migrants suffered severe injuries when they were shot. Many of them lost their eyes, fingers, legs, and ears, and a number of them passed away at the crossing point.