African Migrants Hoping To Enter Saudi Arabia via Yemen Face Violence
Over 77,000 migrants from Ethiopia and Somalia entered Yemen in the first half of 2023 hoping to make it to Saudi Arabia, but they have faced persecution and life-threatening violence, including mass shootings by Saudi border guards
Every day, hundreds of migrants from the Horn of Africa, as well as Yemenis, gather in the town of Al Talib near Yemen’s border with Saudi Arabia.
Some come to smuggle khat, a leaf chewed for its stimulant effects, and other illicit items. Others hope to enter Saudi Arabia illegally to search for work and an improved standard of living.
Many find themselves facing life-threatening violence.
“They work in khat smuggling, car washing, and other work, and some come to Al Talib only to cross to Saudi Arabia,” Abdelaziz Nasser, a native of the town, told The Media Line.
Over the past six years, news of [African migrants] being injured or shot by Saudi border guards has become commonplace, and many African migrants have become aware of the risks
Nasser said that the African migrants, mostly from Ethiopia and Somalia just across the Gulf of Aden, are “constantly subjected to persecution and violence throughout their time in the city,” and some had been murdered by Yemeni smugglers or Saudi border guards.
“Over the past six years, news of [African migrants] being injured or shot by Saudi border guards has become commonplace, and many African migrants have become aware of the risks,” he said.
A Human Rights Watch report last month, titled “Saudi Arabia: Mass Killings of Migrants at Yemen Border,” stated that Saudi border guards had killed “at least hundreds” of Ethiopian migrants, including women and children, between March 2022 and June 2023. The report described a systematic pattern of killing, including the use of close-range weapons and explosives, and said that if the killings were being done as part of Saudi government policy, they would constitute “a crime against humanity.”
Nasser said that some of the events described in the report were witnessed by residents of Al Talib and the border village of Al Thabit.
“There was a gathering of African migrants in the Al Thabit market and suddenly a group of mortar shells targeted that gathering, as if it happened based on intelligence information,” he said. “There have often been ambushes as African migrants entered Saudi Arabia.”
Nasser said that African migrants came to Al Talib to prepare for entry into Saudi Arabia and that most of them knew that the Saudi border guards might shoot them on sight.
The allegations of systematic killings at the border have complicated the relationship between Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
Mohamed Ali al-Houthi, who serves on Yemen’s rebel Supreme Political Council, called on the Ethiopian government to send a plane to transport the bodies of Ethiopian migrants killed on the border back to their home country.
He also said that Saudi Arabia should allow Ethiopian authorities to reach Yemen to receive the bodies, and that Yemen would willingly participate in the investigations “to uncover the truth.”
However, Moammar Al-Eryani, the information minister for Yemen’s internationally recognized government, criticized the HRW report.
The Houthi rebel movement and Yemen’s internationally recognized government have been engaged in civil war since 2014.
The report is “politicized and biased,” Al-Eryani posted on X (formerly Twitter).
“The report ignores the heinous crime committed by the terrorist Houthi militia in burning dozens of African immigrants in one of the detention centers it runs in the hijacked capital Sanaa in March 2021, which resulted in the death and injury of 170 immigrants,” he said.
Al-Eryani also said that the Houthi movement seeks to recruit African migrants to its war effort, giving them a choice between paying a fee or enlisting. He wrote that migrants have been used “in combat and logistic activities such as transporting weapons, ammunition, and food, building barricades, and digging trenches on the frontlines.”
All parties in Yemen’s conflict have been involved in acts of violence against African migrants
Wedad al-Qadi, a professor of political sociology at Sanaa University, described the treatment of African migrants at the Saudi-Yemen border as “a clear violation of UN charters.”
“All parties in Yemen’s conflict have been involved in acts of violence against African migrants,” she told The Media Line.
She too mentioned the fire caused by Houthi forces that destroyed African migrant camps, and said that both the Houthis and the internationally recognized government have tried to recruit African migrants for combat operations.
Ethiopians have suffered greatly from the warring parties in Yemen throughout the war period. They were subjected to systematic torture, sometimes reaching murder
Ethiopian journalist Anwar Ibrahim told The Media Line that the root cause of the challenges for Ethiopian migrants is the poverty forcing them out of their country.
“Ethiopians have suffered greatly from the warring parties in Yemen throughout the war period,” he said. “They were subjected to systematic torture, sometimes reaching murder.”
He said that the Ethiopian government has called for a joint investigation with Saudi Arabia into the report’s allegations.
Nabil Al-Deqri, a self-employed land transport professional, told The Media Line that he has witnessed dozens of African migrants arriving daily to ports in the Gulf of Aden. The ports are under the control of the Southern Transitional Council, a secessionist group opposed to the Houthis.
Al-Deqri recalled seeing migrants arrested and beaten.
“Most of them ask me to take them to Sanaa and from there to the city of Saada to find work and then migrate [to Saudi Arabia],” he said.
“Many have told me about how their relatives were killed while entering Saudi Arabia and that they have no other option to survive.”
According to the UN’s International Organization for Migration, hundreds of thousands of migrants have traveled through Yemen and the Horn of Africa in recent years to try to reach Saudi Arabia, often relying on smugglers.
In the first half of this year alone, 77,000 migrants crossed into Yemen from the Gulf of Aden. The IOM noted that the increasing number of migrants is leading to greater human rights violations.
