The NGO Human Rights Watch unveiled this Monday, August 21 a report according to which Ethiopian migrants were killed by Saudi border guards as they tried to enter the country via Yemen. These murders could constitute a crime against humanity.
A massacre “away from the eyes of the rest of the world”. Saudi border guards have killed since last year “hundreds” Ethiopian migrants trying to enter the rich Gulf monarchy through its border with Yemen, denounced Monday, August 21 the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW). “Saudi authorities are killing hundreds of migrants and asylum seekers in this remote border area”HRW migration specialist Nadia Hardman said in a statement.
Hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians work in Saudi Arabia, sometimes taking the “eastern route” connecting the Horn of Africa to the Gulf, passing through Yemen, a poor country at war for more than eight years. The Murder “widespread and systematic” Ethiopian migrants could even constitute a crime against humanity, believes the NGO. “We are talking about a minimum of 655 people, but it is likely to be thousands”said Nadia Hardman at the BBC. “What we have documented are basically massacres, she added. People have described sites that look like killing fields with bodies strewn across the hillsides.”.
Ryad accused of “diverting attention” from “these horrible crimes”
THE “billions spent” in sports and entertainment “to improve the image of Saudi Arabia” should not divert attention from “these horrible crimes”, she lambasted. NGOs regularly accuse Ryad of investing in major sporting and cultural events to “To divert attention” serious human rights violations and the humanitarian crisis in Yemen where the Saudi army is involved.
Last year, UN experts had already reported“worrying allegations” whereby “Cross-border artillery fire and small arms fire by Saudi security forces killed around 430 migrants” in southern Saudi Arabia and northern Yemen during the first four months of 2022. Northern Yemen is largely controlled by the Houthis, rebels whom the Saudis have been fighting since 2015 in support of pro-government forces.
Interviews and satellite images
To reach such conclusions, Human Rights Watch relies on interviews with 38 Ethiopian migrants who tried to cross into Saudi Arabia from Yemen, satellite images and videos and photos published on social networks. “or collected from other sources”. Respondents spoke of“explosive weapons” and shooting at point-blank range, the Saudi border guards asking the Ethiopians “what part of their body would they prefer to be shot at”.
These migrants recount horror scenes: “Women, men and children scattered across the mountainous landscape, seriously injured, dismembered or already dead”reports HRW. “They were shooting at us, it was like a rain (of bullets)”testifies a 20-year-old woman from the Ethiopian region of Oromia, quoted by the NGO. “I saw a man calling for help, he had lost both legs”but, she says, “We couldn’t help him because we were running to save our own lives.”
With the BBC, several people who tried to cross the border in the middle of the night recount the horror scenes. “The shooting did not stoptestifies Mustafa Soufia Mohammed, 21 years old. I didn’t even notice that I had been shot. But when I tried to get up and walk, part of my leg slipped out. Mustafa’s leg then had to be amputated below the knee, forcing him today to walk on crutches and an ill-fitting prosthesis. Zahra [le prénom a été modifié par le média britannique] she had all the fingers of one hand torn off because of a rain of bullets.
According to the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration, more than 200,000 people each year attempt this perilous journey that crosses the sea from the Horn of Africa to Yemen, to reach Saudi Arabia. HRW calls on Ryad to “stop immediately” the use of lethal force against migrants and asylum seekers, urging the UN to investigate these allegations.
Updated at 11:15 a.m. with more elements.