‘Saudi Arabia border guards killed hundreds of Ethiopian migrants’

Dubai: Border guards in Saudi Arabia have fired machine guns and launched mortars at Ethiopians trying to cross into the kingdom from Yemen, likely killing hundreds of the unarmed migrants in recent years, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Monday.

The rights group cited eyewitness reports of attacks by troops and images that showed dead bodies and burial sites on migrant routes, saying the death toll could even be “possibly thousands”.

The United Nations has already questioned Saudi Arabia about its troops opening fire on the migrants in an escalating pattern of attacks along its southern border with war-torn Yemen. Saudi officials did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press, but has previously denied its troops killed migrants.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who allegedly make tens of thousands of dollars a week smuggling migrants over the border, also did not respond to requests for comment.

Some 750,000 Ethiopians live in Saudi Arabia, with as many as 450,000 likely having entered the kingdom without authorization, according to 2022 statistics from the International Organisation for Migration. The two-year civil war in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region displaced tens of thousands of people.