Saudi guards accused of mass killings of migrants
“If committed as part of a Saudi government policy to murder migrants, these killings would be a crime against humanity,” Human Rights Watch said.
The United States considers Saudi Arabia an important strategic partner — and U.S. service members and personnel have trained Saudi security forces, including the border guard, as part of a long-standing security assistance mission there.
The alleged abuses come as Yemen and Ethiopia are both mired in conflict, protracted crises that have stirred migration from the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. In 2020, violent conflict exploded in Ethiopia’s Tigray region between government forces and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, a paramilitary group whose political wing once ruled the country.
Human Rights Watch now estimates that Ethiopians — fleeing war, hunger and persecution — make up more than 90 percent of migrants traveling to Saudi Arabia along the “Eastern Route.” It’s a perilous path that starts in the Horn of Africa, crosses the Gulf of Aden and snakes through war-torn Yemen to the jagged mountains of Saudi Arabia’s Jizan province.