Human Rights Watch – (London) – Saudi border guards have killed at least hundreds of Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers who tried to cross the Yemen-Saudi border between March 2022 and June 2023, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. If committed as part of a Saudi government policy to murder migrants, these killings, which appear to continue, would be a crime against humanity.

The 73-page report, “‘They Fired on Us Like Rain’: Saudi Arabian Mass Killings of Ethiopian Migrants at the Yemen-Saudi Border,” found that Saudi border guards have used explosive weapons to kill many migrants and shot other migrants at close range, including many women and children, in a widespread and systematic pattern of attacks. In some instances, Saudi border guards asked migrants what limb to shoot, and then shot them at close range. Saudi border guards also fired explosive weapons at migrants who were attempting to flee back to Yemen.

“Saudi officials are killing hundreds of migrants and asylum seekers in this remote border area out of view of the rest of the world,” said Nadia Hardman, refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “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.”

A video published on TikTok on December 4, 2022 shows a group of roughly 47 migrants, 37 of whom appear to be women, walking along a steep slope inside Saudia Arabia on the trail used to cross from the migrant camp of Al Thabit. 2022 Private

Human Rights Watch interviewed 42 people, including 38 Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers who tried to cross the Yemen-Saudi border between March 2022 and June 2023, and 4 relatives or friends of those who tried to cross during that period. Human Rights Watch analyzed over 350 videos and photographs posted to social media or gathered from other sources, and several hundred square kilometers of satellite imagery.

Human Rights Watch wrote to the Saudi and Houthi authorities. The Houthi authorities replied to our letter on August 19, 2023.

Human Rights Watch: “Saudi Arabia Border Guards Commit Mass Killings of Migrants at Yemen Border”

Approximately 750,000 Ethiopians live and work in Saudi Arabia. While many migrate for economic reasons, a number have fled because of serious human rights abuses in Ethiopia, including during the recent, brutal armed conflict in the north.

While Human Rights Watch has documented killings of migrants at the border with Yemen and Saudi Arabia since 2014, the killings appear to be a deliberate escalation in both the number and manner of targeted killings.

Migrants and asylum seekers said they crossed the Gulf of Aden in unseaworthy vessels, Yemeni smugglers then took them to Saada governorate, currently under the control of the Houthi armed group, on the Saudi border.

Many said Houthi forces worked with smugglers and would extort them or transfer them to what migrants described as detention centers, where people were abused until they could pay an “exit fee.”

3D model of likely Saudi border guard posts and patrol roads near fences identified with satellite imagery near the migration route from the migrant camp of Al Thabit in Saada Governorate, Yemen, into Saudi Arabia. Graphic © Human Rights Watch

Migrants in groups of up to 200 people would regularly try to cross the border into Saudi Arabia, often making multiple attempts after Saudi border guards pushed them back. Migrants said that their groups had more women than men and unaccompanied children. Human Rights Watch has identified Saudi border guard posts from satellite images that are consistent with these accounts. Human Rights Watch also identified what appears to be a Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle positioned from October 10, 2021, to December 31, 2022, at one of the Saudi border guard posts. The vehicle appeared to have a heavy machine gun mounted in a turret on its roof.

People traveling in groups described being attacked by mortar projectiles and other explosive weapons from the direction of Saudi border guards once they had crossed the border. Those interviewed described 28 incidents with Saudi border guards using explosive weapons. Survivors said the Saudis sometimes held them in detention facilities, in some cases for months.

All described scenes of horror: women, men, and children’s bodies strewn across the mountainous landscape severely injured, already dead and dismembered. “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.”

A Human Rights Watch digital investigation of videos posted to social media or sent directly to Human Rights Watch and verified and geolocated show dead and wounded migrants on the trails, in camps, and in medical facilities. Geospatial analysis revealed growing burial sites near the migrant camps and expanding border security infrastructure.

Location of burial sites identified on satellite imagery close to Al Raqw migrant camp.Image: February 9, 2022. © 2023 Maxar Technologies. Source Google Earth.

Members of the Independent Forensic Expert Group of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, an international group of prominent forensic experts, analyzed verified videos and photographs showing injured or dead migrants to determine the causes of their wounds. They concluded that some injuries exhibited “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.”

People traveling in smaller groups or on their own said once they crossed the Yemen-Saudi border that Saudi border guards carrying rifles shot at them. People also described guards beating them with rocks and metal bars. Fourteen interviewees witnessed or were themselves wounded in shooting incidents at close range. Six were targeted both by explosive weapons and by shootings.

Some said Saudi border guards would descend from their border guard posts and beat survivors. A 17-year-old boy said border guards forced him and other survivors to rape two girl survivors after the guards had executed another migrant who refused to rape another survivor.

Saudi Arabia should immediately and urgently revoke any policy, whether explicit or de facto, to use lethal force on migrants and asylum seekers, including targeting them with explosive weapons and close-range shootings. The government should investigate and appropriately discipline or prosecute security personnel responsible for unlawful killings, wounding, and torture at the Yemen border.

Concerned governments should publicly call for Saudi Arabia to end any such policy and press for accountability. In the interim, concerned governments should impose sanctions on Saudi and Houthi officials credibly implicated in ongoing violations at the border.

A UN-backed investigation should be established to assess abuses against migrants and whether killings amount to crimes against humanity.

“Saudi border guards knew or should have known they were firing on unarmed civilians,” Hardman said. “If there is no justice for what appear to be serious crimes against Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers, it will only fuel further killings and abuses.”

Officially, France operates under the rule of a colorblind identity, There are no Black, white, or brown French, just a French citizen. However, the shooting of Nahel has reignited a debate over systematic racism that many French politicians refuse to acknowledge exists. Yet, in reality, the problem runs deeper in the country and is more complicated.

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Protesters hold placards reading “Justice for Adama, Nahel, Alhoussein and all the others” (R) and “Free our comrades” as they attend a demonstration against “State racism” in front of the court of Nanterre, western Paris, on July 10, 2023, following the shooting of a teenage driver by French police in the Paris suburb of Nanterre on June 27. More than 3,700 people were taken into police custody in connection with the protests since Nahel’s death, including at least 1,160 minors, according to official figures. (Photo by JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP) (Photo by JULIEN DE ROSA/AFP via Getty Images)

While many police officers reject the idea that minority groups are being discriminated against because of their skin color, a lot of incidents throughout the years prove otherwise. Solely in 2023, Nahel’s death has been the third police fatal shooting at a traffic stop. In most of the shootings throughout the years, the victims had been either black or of North African origin.  Furthermore, in 2021, Amnesty International along with other rights groups filed a lawsuit against the French state accusing it of police profiling on a racial basis.  

Another point that hints at police racism could be seen from the last French election. In that election, more than half of the police officers in France admitted that they would be voting for Marine Le Pen. The far-right candidate whose campaign focused mainly on anti-immigrant and anti-muslim rhetoric.

Nonetheless, this issue is not merely a police issue, it goes deep into French society.

A recent survey by the French representative council of Black Associations discovered that most black people in France have suffered from racial discrimination at one point or another.

Perhaps a better indicator of these sentiments can be seen in the fundraiser started for the 38-year-old police officer Florian M, who shot and killed Nahel. This fundraiser which was started by Jean Messiha, a former spokesperson for the far-right presidential candidate Éric Zemmour, had collected over €1m while a similar fundraiser for the family of the victim had amassed less than €200,000.

These sentiments attributed to French society have also, in more than one instance, been encouraged by French media. In more than one example, the French media frequently relied heavily on police sources without verifying them, but have also vilified and criminalized Nahel, as an individual who deserved to be shot dead, rather than a victim of police brutality.

So this issue is not only a police problem but it also has strings all over the French population. But one cannot turn a blind eye to this problem within the French politics itself.  

As we just mentioned earlier,  In the last France election, A rhetoric spread by the right-wing candidate Le Pen showcases the existence of these racist sentiments within French politics. However, these sentiments are not something new. Since the start of immigration waves toward France, it has been the strategy of French governments to designate specific suburbs away from city centers to host immigrant communities. In theory, to provide support for these communities, but in practice, it left these communities isolated and in dire need of opportunities.

That in itself explains how the recent riots are not something new for the French capital as it echoes the same tragedy of the 2005 riots. It was a riot instigated by the accidental electrocution and death of two teenagers who were hiding from police.

Many individuals believe that both the 2005 and 2023 riots have these deeply-seated concerns from these communities as a catalyst for the riots. Concerning the 2005 riots, Eric Favreau, a French social commentator, claimed that people living in these communities don’t seek violence “The inhabitants don’t want it. The Muslims don’t want it. Even the drug dealers don’t want it. But the problems in these suburbs have been left to stagnate for 30 years, and somehow they’re right. The more they burn cars, the more we pay attention to them (NPR) “.

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PARIS, FRANCE – JULY 8:Despite the ban on the annual march in tribute to Adama Traore, several hundred people gathered at Place de la Republique against police violence and the current climate of repression, at the call of Assa Traore, the Truth and Justice for Adama committee and NUPES-LFI deputies, in Paris on July 8, 2023,France. The memorial commemorated Adama Traoré, a black French man who died in custody in 2016 after he was arrested and restrained by police. The memorial comes the week after the death of 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk, who was killed by police in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre, an incident which sparked protests across the country. (Photo by Antoine Gyori – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)

Similarly, Amine Kessaci, the brother of another victim of a police shooting, in an interview for BBC denounced the violence but argued that “There are no other options. There are no companies coming here and saying we’ll pay you more than minimum wage… here people are supermarket cashiers or cleaners or security guards. We can’t be judges, lawyers or accountants.” (BBC).

While the issue of systemic racism in France is not something new or something that can easily be sorted out, the way the French government has been dealing with it will only deepen the issue. Ignoring this issue will not make it go away. When France was called out by the UN for the shooting of Nahel, the French Foreign Ministry blatantly claimed “Any accusation of racism or systemic discrimination in the police force in France is totally unfounded (LeMonde)”.

Also, the way that Macron and the French government have been dealing with the riots depicts a misunderstanding of the roots of the issue. Macron tried to paint the recent riots as an issue of moral crumbling and youth rebellion on one hand and even showcased some signs of authoritarianism by threatening to cut off social media to stop street violence.

All in all, the steps taken by the French government at the moment seem to mostly deflect the rooted issues that not only caused this riot but also the 2005 riots. A self-reflection by the government and the French people is quite necessary before even thinking about starting a conversation about Racism within the colorblind country.

Allow Aid Access; Take People to Safety

( Human Rights Watch) – (Tunis) – Tunisian security forces have collectively expelled several hundred Black African migrants and asylum seekers, including children and pregnant women, since July 2, 2023 to a remote, militarized buffer zone at the Tunisia–Libya border, Human Rights Watch said today. The group includes people with both regular and irregular legal status in Tunisia, expelled without due process. Many reported violence by authorities during arrest or expulsion.

“The Tunisian government should halt collective expulsions and urgently enable humanitarian access to the African migrants and asylum seekers already expelled to a dangerous area at the Tunisia-Libya border, with little food and no medical assistance,” said Lauren Seibert, refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Not only is it unconscionable to abuse people and abandon them in the desert, but collective expulsions violate international law.”

Between July 2 and 6, Human Rights Watch interviewed five people by phone who had been expelled, including an Ivorian asylum seeker and four migrants: two Ivorian men, a Cameroonian man, and a 16-year-old Cameroonian girl. Interviewees’ names are not used for their protection. They could not give an exact number, but estimated that Tunisian authorities had expelled between 500 and 700 people since July 2 to the border area, around 35 kilometers east of the town Ben Guerdane. They arrived in at least four different groups, ranging in size.

The people expelled were of many African nationalities – Ivorian, Cameroonian, Malian, Guinean, Chadian, Sudanese, Senegalese, and others – and included at least 29 children and three pregnant women, interviewees said. At least six expelled people were asylum seekers registered with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), while at least two adults had consular cards identifying them as students in Tunisia.

People interviewed said they had been arrested in raids by police, national guard, or military in and near Sfax, a port city southeast of the capital, Tunis. National guard and military forces rapidly transported them 300 kilometers to Ben Guerdane, then to the Libya border, where they were effectively trapped in what they described as a buffer zone from which they could neither enter Libya nor return to Tunisia.

Tensions have been high in Sfax for months as Tunisian residents campaigned for African foreigners to leave, escalating to recent attacks against Black Africans and clashes with Tunisians. A man from Benin was killed in May and a Tunisian man on July 3. Videos circulating on social media in early July depicted groups of Tunisian men threatening Black Africans with batons and knives, and in other videos, security officers shoving Black Africans into vans while people cheered.

People interviewed said that Tunisian security forces had smashed nearly everyone’s phones prior to expulsion. They communicated with Human Rights Watch primarily through a phone that one man had managed to hide. They provided their GPS location on July 2 and July 4, as well as videos and photos of smashed phones; expelled people and their injuries, reportedly from security force beatings; and passports, consular cards, and asylum seeker cards.

Women and children expelled by Tunisian authorities to the Libyan border stand by the shore, July 6, 2023.  © 2023 Private

Those interviewed alleged that several people died or were killed at the border area between July 2 and 5 – including, they said, some shot and others beaten by Tunisian military or national guard. They also said that Libyan men carrying machetes or other weapons had robbed some people and raped several women, either in the buffer zone or after they managed to cross into Libya to look for food. No nongovernmental groups had access to the area, so Human Rights Watch could not independently confirm these accounts.

One video the migrants sent to Human Rights Watch showed a woman describing sexual assault apparently by Tunisian security forces. In another video, a woman says she had a miscarriage after the expulsion.

“We are at the Tunisia-Libya border, at the seaside,” said an Ivorian asylum seeker on July 4. “We were beaten [by Tunisian security forces].…We have many injured people here.…We have children who haven’t eaten for days … forced to drink sea water. We have a [Guinean] pregnant woman who went into labor … she died this morning … the baby died too.”

At the start of the expulsions, a group of 20 was dropped at the border the morning of July 2. Human Rights Watch interviewed two people in the group: a 29-year-old Ivorian man, and a 16-year-old Cameroonian girl.

The Ivorian man said that on July 1, police, national guard, and military personnel raided the house where they were staying – arresting 48 people – in Jbeniana, 35 kilometers north of Sfax. He said the detained people had entered Tunisia at various times, some regularly and some irregularly, but none he knew had passed through Libya. Tunisian authorities took the 48 people to a police station, examined their documents, and recorded their information. Security forces divided them into two groups, and drove the man’s group to Ben Guerdane, he said.

The man said they made stops at three bases in Ben Guerdane, and military or national guard officers “beat us like animals … punching, kicking, slapping, hitting us with batons,” and sexually harassed and assaulted the women, including groping them. “They started to touch me everywhere,” said the Cameroonian girl in the same group. “They slammed my head against their vehicle.”

The security forces threw away their food, smashed their phones, and left them at the border, the Ivorian man said. Two armed men in uniform from Libya later approached them and ordered them to return to Tunisia, he said, while on the other side, Tunisian military beat several men who sought to cross back to Tunisia.

Two men in a second expelled group, Cameroonian and Ivorian, said they and others had been arrested during raids on their houses in Sfax, on July 3 between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m., by police, national guard, and military. They said that authorities did not ask for anyone’s documents or record their personal information, though some were in Tunisia legally; instead, they drove them swiftly overnight to Ben Guerdane.

“We are from different countries of origin … and they brought us 300 kilometers from Sfax [to expel us] … instead of bringing us to Tunis, to our embassies,” the Ivorian asylum seeker said. “It’s inhuman.”

On July 5 and 6, authorities expelled a third and fourth group, each an estimated 200-300 people, from Sfax. Videos interviewees shared showed many injured people among the arrivals, with open wounds, bandaged limbs, and one with an apparently broken leg.

As of July 5, no humanitarian aid from the Tunisian side had reached the group, though the Ivorian man from the first expelled group said some uniformed Libyan men arrived that evening to provide some water and cookies for the children. But then on July 6, “The [same] Libyans … started to shoot in the air, burn things, chase us.… The Libyans told us to leave the territory and go toward the Tunisian side. They started to take out their guns to threaten us.”

On July 6, Human Rights Watch contacted representatives of the Tunisian Interior, Defense and Foreign Affairs ministries by phone, but was unable to obtain information.

President Kais Saied, in an inflammatory February speech that triggered a surge of racist attacks against Black Africans, had linked undocumented African migrants to crime and a “plot” to alter Tunisia’s demographic makeup. In a July 4 statement, Saied referenced “the criminal operation that occurred yesterday” in Sfax, referring to the Tunisian man’s killing, and said, “Tunisia is a country that only accepts people residing on its territory in accordance with its laws, and does not accept to be a transit or settlement zone for people arriving from numerous African countries.”

Tunisia is party to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which prohibits collective expulsions, as well as the UN and African Refugee Conventions, the Convention Against Torture, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which prohibit refoulement – forced returns or expulsions to countries where people could face torture, threats to their lives or freedom, or other serious harm. All countries should suspend expulsions or forced returns to Libya, given the serious harm people may face there. Governments should also not expel asylum seekers whose refugee claims have not been fully examined.

The Tunisian government should respect international law and conduct individual legal status assessments in accordance with due process before deporting anyone, Human Rights Watch said. The government should also investigate and hold to account security forces implicated in abuses.

Diplomatic delegations of African countries should seek to locate and evacuate any of their nationals expelled to the Tunisia-Libya border who wish to voluntarily return to their countries of origin, while the African Union Commission should condemn the abusive expulsions and press Tunisia to provide immediate assistance to affected Africans.

“African migrants and asylum seekers, including children, are desperate to get out of the dangerous border zone and find food, medical care, and safety,” Seibert said. “There is no time to waste.”

Via Human Rights Watch

(The Conversation) – Tens of thousands of migrant Ethiopian workers have been forcibly repatriated from Saudi Arabia each year since the early 2010s. Although this is carried out as part of a crackdown on illegal migrant workers, legally documented workers have frequently been caught in the dragnet. Another 102,000 Ethiopian citizens will soon be repatriated in another round that began in April 2022. Girmachew Adugna, who has researched Ethiopian migration for years, explains the background to the deportations along with concerns about human rights violations and the challenges that returnees face.

What is the broad picture of Ethiopian labour migration to the Gulf?

There are over 30 million migrant workers in the more than half-a-dozen Gulf countries. As the third highest destination for international migrants in the world in 2019, Saudi Arabia is the main destination. Ethiopia makes a sizeable number of the kingdom’s 13,122,300 migrant workers. It is estimated that about 750,000 Ethiopians currently reside and work in the kingdom.

However, the exact number is unknown due to routine deportation and irregular entry and overstaying visas. As many as 90% of the migrants entering Saudi Arabia illegally through Yemen are Ethiopian. Along with Ethiopians and Yemenis, the three largest immigrant groups in the kingdom are from India (2.4 million), Indonesia (1.7 million), and Pakistan (1.4 million).

There are a number of factors responsible for outward migration from Ethiopia. Although the economy is one of the fastest growing in the world, this growth has not been accompanied by considerable poverty reduction and job creation, particularly for young people. With migrant workers in Saudi Arabia earning five times what they could earn for similar work back home, the incentive to migrate is strong.

Ethiopians who migrate to the Gulf countries are mainly single, uneducated young people. Women account for about 95% of all documented migrants going to the Gulf.

Ethiopian workers in Saudi Arabia are mainly engaged in domestic work. Other popular jobs include cleaning, casual work and herding.

What is the backdrop to the intermittent deportations?

In recent years, the large number of undocumented workers has become a source of diplomatic friction between Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia. At the height of the Arab Spring which spread across North Africa and the Middle East in the early 2010s, Saudi Arabia began imposing strict immigration policies targeted at foreign workers. As a result, around 170,000 Ethiopians were deported in late 2013 and early 2014.

More than half a million Ethiopian migrants have been deported from Saudi Arabia since 2017. Overall, over 6.4 million people have been detained since 2017 and 2.1 million undocumented migrant workers deported from Saudi Arabia.

The latest round of repatriations involves 102,000 migrants. It began in April 2022 and is expected to be completed by the end of the year, according to the Ethiopian government. So far, 70% of the 102,000 citizens have been returned home on 198 flights.

While both governments haggle over the deportations in regular diplomatic exchanges, deportees suffer the direct consequences.

On many occasions, returnees end up as internally displaced. They do not realise their migration objectives and they return home in the context of poverty and conflict.

In Saudi Arabia, migrants repeatedly have their human rights violated. They are routinely placed in detention centres indefinitely.

Once back home, they are faced with a difficult reintegration into their communities. This happens if they are perceived as having “failed” to achieve the economic objectives of migration.

The Ethiopian government banned labour migration to the Gulf and Sudan after the first wave of deportations in the early 2010s. This was in order to come up with policy and legislation to improve the protection of its migrant workers.

The ban was lifted in February 2018. At the same time, Ethiopia proclaimed that workers could migrate to only those Gulf countries that had signed bilateral agreements: Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

What needs to be done

Signing a bilateral agreement increases legal migration pathways for Ethiopian domestic workers. It also addresses the safe, dignified return of undocumented migrants.

But these arrangements don’t go far enough. Negotiations should also address the conditions of the detention camps and protection assistance for Ethiopian migrant workers. They should widen legal pathways for more Ethiopian migrants to work and live legally in Saudi Arabia.

Lastly, the Ethiopian side should press to regularise the status of irregular Ethiopian migrants. Saudi authorities are likely to resist this.

For its part, Ethiopia should do more for returning migrants. Lack of financial resources and skills makes it harder for returnees to re-enter the local labour market. This is partly because there are limited resources allocated for reintegration. Conflict in parts of Ethiopia makes the reintegration efforts difficult too.

Female returnees face stigma and discrimination from families and communities. This is partly because they are believed to be engaged in socially unacceptable practices such as commercial sex work.

Prioritising the reintegration of vulnerable migrants is key. This should seek to address individual needs as well as those of the family, community and structural problems. Community-based approaches to address stigma, prejudices and discrimination should be encouraged.

This task calls for a lot of resources. Ethiopia doesn’t have what’s needed and should look to the international community for help. But it will require hard work. The issue attracts little or no attention from international donors such as the European Union, which prioritises the return, readmission and reintegration of far fewer Ethiopian migrants working and living in Europe illegally.

Ethiopia has drafted the first ever national migration policy. This could possibly help improve the migration governance including return and reintegration efforts. It is key to strengthening the implementation capacity of government institutions at all levels and involving civil society, media, and the private sector in the reintegration process as they help facilitate labour market absorption, reduce stigma and discrimination.

Girmachew Adugna, Advisory Board Member, Research Center for Forced Displacement and Migration Studies, Addis Ababa University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.