According to Human Rights Watch's report "’They Fired on Us Like Rain’: Saudi Arabian Mass Killings of Ethiopian Migrants at the Yemen-Saudi Border", hundreds of migrants and asylum seekers were murdered at the Saudi Arabia-Yemen border. Border guards are reported to have used explosives, mortar shells and firearms, among other weapons.

According to members of the Independent Forensic Expert Group (IFEG) of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, an international group of forensic experts, the wounds present on injured or dead migrants show "clear patterns consistent with the explosion of munitions with capacity to produce heat and fragmentation," while others have "characteristics consistent with gunshot wounds" and, in one instance, "burns are visible."

Human Rights Watch’s representatives spoke to 42 people. Of HRW's interviewees, 38 were would-be asylum seekers and migrants and four were relatives of people who tried to cross the Yemen-Saudi Arabia border between March 2022 and June 2023. All interviewees recounted the nightmare they experienced. A recurring theme in the stories was the bodies of women, men and children scattered along the road. "First I was eating with people and then they were dying," said one person. "There are some people who you cannot identify because their bodies are thrown everywhere. Some people were torn in half."

People travelling in groups described being attacked with mortar shells and other explosive weapons by Saudi guards after crossing the border. In total, interviewees described 28 attacks with explosive weapons. Migrants who chose to travel alone told of guards shooting at them after crossing the border. There were also reports of stones being thrown and beatings with metal rods.

A 17-year-old boy said that border guards forced him and other survivors to rape two girls. Moments earlier, the same guards had murdered a migrant who refused to rape another survivor.

In one particularly frightening incident in early June 2023, those interviewed said Saudi border guards fired mortar projectiles at a group of resting migrants after having just released them back at the border, HRW’s report described.

Munira, a 20-year-old woman from Oromia, recounts what happened:

"The Saudis picked us up from the detention centre in Daer and put us in a minibus going back to the Yemen border. When they released us, they created a kind of chaos; they screamed at us to ‘get out of the car and get away.’ (...) This is when they started to fire mortars – to keep us into the mountain line, they fired the mortar from left and right. When we were one kilometre away, the border guards could see us.

"We were resting together after running a lot… and that’s when they fired mortars on our group. Directly at us. There were 20 in our group and only ten survived. Some of the mortars hit the rocks and then the [fragments of the] rock hit us… The weapon looks like a rocket launcher, it had six ‘mouths,’ six holes from where they fire and it was fired from the back of a vehicle – it fires several at the same time.

"They fired on us like rain. When I remember, I cry... I saw a guy calling for help, he lost both his legs. He was screaming; he was saying, ‘Are you leaving me here? Please don’t leave me.’ We couldn’t help him because we were running for our lives. There are several people who lost their body parts."

Human Rights Watch analysed more than 300 photos and videos published on social media or obtained from other sources. Several hundred square kilometres of satellite images were also analysed. Basing on this data, HRW’s activists identified border guard posts that matched those described by migrants.

Thanks to the satellite images, they also identified a Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle positioned from 10 October 2021 to 31 December 2022 at one of the border guard posts. The vehicle appears to have had a heavy machine gun turret mounted on its roof.

Satellite images revealed not only Saudi Arabia's border guard posts, but also burial sites that are forming along the border. Eight of them can be seen in the images located near the migrant camps.

According to HRW, a UN-backed investigation should take place in Saudi Arabia. The aim of the exercise is to assess the abuse of migrants and to investigate whether the killings constitute crimes against humanity. HRW is also asking governments from around the world to put pressure on the Saudi Arabian government. Thousands of human lives are at stake.

Nadia Hardman, a representative of Human Rights Watch, makes it clear:

"Saudi officials are killing hundreds of migrants and asylum seekers in this remote border area out of view of the rest of the world. Spending billions buying up professional golf, football clubs, and major entertainment events to improve the Saudi image should not deflect attention from these horrendous crimes," says Nadia Hardman, a representative of Human Rights Watch.

Source: Human Rights Watch