HRW Report: Saudi Border Guards Have Killed Hundreds of Migrants

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Facts

  • According to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report released Monday, Saudi Arabia's border guard has killed hundreds of Ethiopians with machine gun and mortar fire as they tried to cross into the kingdom from Yemen based on evidence collected between March 2022 and June 2023.1
  • The report cites interviews with 42 Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers and over 350 videos and photographs showing dead bodies and burial sites posted to social media, as well as satellite imagery.2
  • HRW refugee and migrant rights researcher Nadia Hardman claimed the killings were conducted in a “remote border area out of view of the rest of the world.”3
  • An anonymous Saudi government official dismissed the report as "unfounded" but offered no evidence to support the assertion. Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who control part of the Yemeni side of the border, haven't commented on the matter so far.4
  • US experts last year reported that there were "concerning allegations" that "cross-border artillery shelling and small-arms fire by Saudi Arabia security forces killed approximately 430 migrants" in southern Saudi Arabia and northern Yemen at the beginning of 2022.5
  • The war in Yemen has raged since 2014, when the Houthi rebels captured the capital Sanaa and a Saudi-led coalition intervened the following year to prevent the group from taking over the entire country. The report also accuses the Houthis of widespread abuse of migrants by facilitating smuggling, extortion, and detention.6

Sources: 1Associated Press, 2CNN, 3VOA, 4FOX News, 5CBS, and 6New York Times.

Narratives

  • Narrative A, as provided by Human Rights Watch. Yet again, it has become clear that Saudi Arabia is committing grave human rights abuses against some of the most vulnerable people on the planet. The Houthis, of course, are also committing crimes, but the Saudi border guard is committing regular massacres against migrants, and the international community must hold it accountable for these brutal discretions.
  • Narrative B, as provided by Al Jazeera. Given that there is no reliable evidence that the Saudi border guard abused any migrants, such allegations against the kingdom are completely baseless.

Predictions