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, a report released by Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.
The report released by a New York-based global NGO on Monday said the Saudi forces used explosive weapons and shot people at close range, including women and children, in a "widespread and systematic" pattern.
The HRW claimed the report is based on interviews with 42 Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers. Over 350 videos and photographs posted to social media and satellite imagery were analysed for the report.
The satellite imagery captured between February 2022 and July 2023 showed dead and wounded migrants on the trails, in camps and medical facilities. It also revealed how burial sites near the migrant camps grew in size. The Saudi Arabian border security infrastructure too expanded during this period, the report alleged.
According to HRW, videos shared on TikTok and Facebook purport to show dead bodies along the migrant trail near the Yemen-Saudi border. It also quoted a forensic pathologist who describe wounds consistent with injuries from explosive blasts or gunshots on migrants. Satellite imagery obtained by the nonprofit also indicated growing graveyards nearby. HRW claimed to have sourced and verified the videos.
Ethiopian migrants have for decades taken the dangerous migration route known as the 'Eastern Route or Yemeni route' to Saudi Arabia. The route, from the Horn of Africa across the Gulf of Aden through Yemen and into Saudi Arabia, is also used by migrants from Somalia and Eritrea and other East African nations. Of late, the number of migrants, including women and girls, has increased due to armed conflicts in their countries.
The route is a haven for smugglers and traffickers and the asylum seekers and migrants are often physically assaulted and extorted by the traffickers.
The journey, which starts from the Gulf of Aden on overcrowded and unseaworthy vessels with limited food and water, ends in Yemen. Smugglers then take them to Saada governorate, currently under the control of the Houthi armed group on the border with Saudi Arabia.
The camps are controlled by Houthi forces who work with smugglers. Tens of thousands of migrants wait for their turn to cross the border into Saudi Arabia. Houthi forces would often extort bribes from the migrants or transfer them to what migrants described as detention centres where people were abused until they could pay an exit fee.
"Those unable to pay the smuggler fees in full were often forced to lead the group and consequently were the most likely to be injured or killed by explosive weapons attacks or shootings," the HRW report said.
Many migrants told HRW that Saudi border guards patrol the border area holding rifles or in vehicles with "rocket launchers" mounted on the rear. They report seeing cameras tracking their movements mounted on what looked like "street lamps" on the Saudi side of the border.
The report claims there is a deliberate escalation in the number and manner of targeted killings and the pattern of abuses has changed from an apparent practice of occasional shootings and mass detentions to widespread and systematic killings. "Such killings would be crimes against humanity if they are both widespread and systematic and part of a state policy of deliberate murder of a civilian population," the report added.
"We were fired on repeatedly. I saw people killed in a way I have never imagined. I saw 30 killed people on the spot. I pushed myself under a rock and slept there. I could feel people sleeping around me. I realized what I thought were people sleeping around me were actually dead bodies. I woke up and I was alone," the report quoted 14-year-old Hamdiya.
The report added that attacks sometimes lasted for hours or even days. Once the attacks stopped, survivors were often then approached by Saudi border guards and detained, sometimes for months, by Saudi authorities in Saudi detention facilities.
The report said over 10 people interviewed said 11 border crossing attempts involving more than 1,200 migrants resulted in at least 655 deaths. Many said they were too busy fleeing or traumatised to estimate the toll. One interviewee told HRW that "from 150, only 7 people survived that day … there were remains of people everywhere, scattered everywhere."
HRW said it interviewed survivors who were asked by Saudi border guards which limb they preferred to be shot, before shooting them at close range. "They shot at our legs … the guards were wearing Saudi military uniform, multiple colours with a mix of green and brown," one 23-year-old migrant told HRW.
However, a Saudi government source told CNN that "the allegations included in the Human Rights Watch report about Saudi border guards shooting Ethiopians while they were crossing the Saudi-Yemeni border are unfounded and not based on reliable sources."