RIYADH (Dispatches) – Yemen’s al-Masirah news channel has revealed footage of what it described as a mass grave containing dozens of African migrants killed by Saudi border guards.
The footage shows pictures of a mass grave containing dozens of Ethiopian migrants who were killed by the kingdom’s border guards.
“Saudi soldiers deliberately electrocuted dozens of Ethiopian migrants in a room where they were gathered,” the channel quoted survivors as saying.
The survivors said Saudi border guards shoot directly at the migrants, often using mortars, adding that they “kill about five migrants at the border every day and injure many more.”
For years, human rights organizations have denounced the conditions of detention of Ethiopian immigrants in Saudi Arabia.
Ethiopians travel to Saudi Arabia for economic reasons and to flee serious human rights abuses back home.
Earlier this year, Middle East Eye reported that Saudi authorities were covering rampant human rights abuses at its migrant detention centers while continuing to arrest thousands of foreign migrants.
The online news portal cited the Ethiopian migrants awaiting deportation as saying that Saudi authorities had conducted mass searches of the detention centers, confiscating phones and any devices that could be used to shine a light on their suffering to the outside world.
“They came in here looking for phones because they don’t want the world to see images of our suffering here,” an Ethiopian migrant was quoted as saying in the report, which was published on May 6. “When they would find a phone, they would beat up the owner with batons.”
Back in April, the Arabic-language New al-Khalij news website reported that Saudi authorities had deported hundreds of Ethiopian migrant workers after keeping them for months in detention centers across the kingdom under degrading conditions.
“We returned to our blessed country after six months in prison... but many of our brothers are still suffering, especially in men’s prisons,” a 28-year-old woman said at the time.