{"id":284114,"date":"2019-08-15T00:00:01","date_gmt":"2019-08-15T04:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.google.com\/articles\/CBMiSmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lmhydy5vcmcvbmV3cy8yMDE5LzA4LzE1L2V0aGlvcGlhbnMtYWJ1c2VkLWd1bGYtbWlncmF0aW9uLXJvdXRl0gEA?oc=5"},"modified":"2026-10-19T11:46:54","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T15:46:54","slug":"hrw-ethiopians-abused-gulf-migration-route-yemen-saudi-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/284114","title":{"rendered":"Human Rights Watch documented torture in Yemen and abusive Saudi detention of Ethiopian migrants on the Gulf route in 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ethiopians crossing the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden toward Saudi Arabia faced torture by traffickers in Yemen and abusive Saudi detention before summary deportation, Human Rights Watch said on Aug. 15, 2019.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/figure>\n

The Bab el-Mandeb Strait between Djibouti and Yemen, a crossing on the migration route from the Horn of Africa to Yemen, seen by NASA\u2019s ASTER instrument on April 10, 2017. (NASA\/METI\/AIST\/Japan Space Systems and U.S.\/Japan ASTER Science Team via Wikimedia Commons, public domain) [file photo]<\/em><\/p>\n

Human Rights Watch interviewed 12 Ethiopians in Addis Ababa who had been deported from Saudi Arabia between December 2018 and May 2019, as well as humanitarian workers and diplomats. Eleven of them had used smuggling and trafficking networks linked across Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia\u2019s Puntland state, Somaliland, Yemen and Saudi Arabia, the group said.<\/p>\n

The International Organization for Migration estimated that as many as 500,000 Ethiopians were in Saudi Arabia when the Saudi government began a deportation campaign in November 2017. About 260,000 Ethiopians, an average of 10,000 a month, were deported between May 2017 and March 2019, according to IOM figures cited by Human Rights Watch.<\/p>\n

Interviewees described boat crossings of four to 24 hours from Djibouti, Somaliland or Puntland, in overcrowded boats with no food or water. \u201cThere were 180 people on the boat, but 25 died,\u201d one man said. He said the smugglers threw about 25 people into the sea when the overloaded boat was about to sink.<\/p>\n

Traffickers met many migrants on arrival in Yemen and held them in camps, beating them to extort ransom from relatives, Human Rights Watch said. The camps were run by Yemenis, but Ethiopians often carried out the abuse, and relatives sold homes or land to pay. One man said his father sold his farmland to raise 10,000 birr, about $349, before the traffickers demanded 20,000 birr.<\/p>\n

Most crossings into Saudi Arabia were near the Yemeni mountain villages of Souq al-Ragu and Izlat Al Thabit, between Yemen\u2019s Saada governorate and Saudi Arabia\u2019s Jizan province. Four of the 11 who crossed on foot said Saudi border guards shot at them. \u201cAt the border there are many bodies rotting, decomposing,\u201d a 26-year-old man said. \u201cIt is like a graveyard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former detainees described overcrowding, chains, overflowing toilets, too little food and beatings at a center near al-Dayer in Jizan, at Jizan Central Prison and at the Shmeisi Detention Center east of Jeddah. Some said they were beaten when they asked for medical care, and detainees with tuberculosis symptoms were not isolated. None was given a chance to challenge deportation; Saudi Arabia is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, the report said.<\/p>\n

Deportees often landed at the cargo or domestic terminal of Bole International Airport with no money for food, transport or shelter, aid workers said. Much of donors\u2019 migration funding for Ethiopia was earmarked for the route to Europe, leaving little for returnees from Saudi Arabia, Human Rights Watch said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSaudi Arabia has summarily returned hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians to Addis Ababa who have little to show for their journey except debts and trauma,\u201d said Felix Horne, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. The group said it wrote to the Ethiopian and Saudi governments, and neither had responded at the time of publication.<\/p>\n

The Guardian reported on Aug. 16, 2019 that deportee Tayib Mohammed, 45, said Saudi police burned his phone, clothes and money at the border. \u201cThey\u2019ve systematised the deportation machine now,\u201d Adam Coogle of Human Rights Watch told the newspaper. A Saudi official denied the allegations and said \u201cno offender is deported by force.\u201d<\/p>\n

Berhanu Aberra, director for overseas employment at Ethiopia\u2019s labor ministry, told the Guardian the government was working \u201cwith the respective Saudi bodies to respect and protect the dignity, rights and safety of our citizens.\u201d The report came the same month Ethiopia resumed legally sending trained domestic workers to Saudi Arabia under a 2017 labor agreement.<\/p>\n

Danielle Botti of the Mixed Migration Centre told the Guardian that at least 18,000 migrants a month arrived in Yemen in April and May 2019, the highest numbers recorded since 2006. IOM estimated that $23.8 million was needed to help returnees reintegrate, the newspaper said.<\/p>\n

On Aug. 21, 2023, Human Rights Watch published a further report, \u201cThey Fired on Us Like Rain,\u201d saying Saudi border guards had killed at least hundreds of Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers who tried to cross the Yemen-Saudi border between March 2022 and June 2023. Saudi Arabia had previously rejected allegations of systematic killings, the BBC reported.<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/strong> Human Rights Watch: \u201cEthiopians Abused on Gulf Migration Route\u201d (2019)<\/a>, The Guardian (2019)<\/a>, Human Rights Watch: \u201cThey Fired on Us Like Rain\u201d (2023)<\/a>, BBC News (2023)<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ethiopians crossing the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden toward Saudi Arabia faced torture by traffickers in Yemen and abusive Saudi detention before summary deportation, Human Rights Watch said on Aug. 15, 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":837972,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-284114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/bab-el-mandeb-strait-aster-2017.jpg?fit=1280%2C1493&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-1bUu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284114"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":837981,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284114\/revisions\/837981"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/837972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}