One Ethiopian migrant, who tried to reach the country from a Yemeni settlement called Al Raqw in December 2024, described Saudi border forces targeting him and 10 other Ethiopians with machine guns and artillery to push them back into Yemen, wounding one.
HRW documented one incident when Saudi border guards shot an Ethiopian man who refused to rape two girls after their group survived an explosive weapons attack.
Ethiopian migrants attempting to cross from neighbouring Yemen between 2019 and 2024 have given accounts to the Guardian of coming under machine gun fire and of seeing bodies rotting in the border area.
These irregular migrants endure perilous desert treks and sea crossings and rampant abuses by people smugglers, armed gangs and Yemeni rebel groups before they even reach the Saudi border.
One man travelled to Yemen in the hope of reaching Saudi Arabia after serving for nearly two years as a rebel fighter in the war that gripped Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region in 2020-2022.
