With numerous reports of women being raped and reports of fatalities and injuries, Saudi Arabian forces are accused of employing indiscriminate force against migrants on their borders.
Between 2019 and 2024, Ethiopian migrants trying to cross from neighboring Yemen have told the Guardian that they have been subjected to machine gun fire and have witnessed bodies decaying along the border.
“I personally saw three people die next to me,” said one Ethiopian, who attempted to cross at night into Saudi’s Najran province with dozens of others in 2022. “One of my legs was blown away by the Saudi fire. There were body parts of the injured and the dead all around me.”
The statements are in line with a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report from August 2023 that claimed Saudi border guards used firearms and explosives to murder “hundreds of Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers” on the southern border with Yemen between March 2022 and June 2023 “in a pattern that is widespread and systematic.” The group came to the conclusion that these acts might qualify as crimes against humanity.
An Ethiopian man who refused to rape two girls after their group survived an explosive weapons attack was shot by Saudi border guards, according to one incident HRW documented. HRW claims that a teenage boy was then coerced into raping the girls. In another, Saudi border guards shot Ethiopian migrants at close range after asking them to select the area of their bodies they wanted to be shot.
About 750,000 Ethiopians are thought to reside and work in Saudi Arabia. Some have fled due to severe human rights violations by their government, including during the recent, violent armed conflict in northern Ethiopia, but many migrate for economic reasons.
For many years, Ethiopian migrants have tried the perilous “Eastern Route,” also referred to as the “Yemeni Route,” which leads from the Horn of Africa through Yemen, the Gulf of Aden, and Saudi Arabia. According to estimates, Ethiopians make up well over 90% of the migrants traveling this route. Additionally, migrants from Somalia, Eritrea, and occasionally other east African countries use the route. The percentage of women and girls who migrate via the eastern route has increased in recent years.
