Saudi border guards killed hundreds of migrants, says HRW report

The rocky, mountainous region around Sadaa – a hardscrabble city in northern Yemen right by the border with Saudi Arabia – has turned into lethal terrain, according to human rights groups. Bodies of dead or seriously wounded migrants, mostly from Ethiopia, have been spotted in satellite imagery and social media posts from the border, providing harrowing testimony of abuses, notes the latest report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW).

“They Fired on Us Like Rain”, an HRW report released on 21 August records widespread abuses committed on the Yemen-Saudi border between March 2022 and June 2023.

“Saudi border guards have used explosive weapons and shot people at close range, including women and children, in a pattern that is widespread and systematic. If committed as part of a Saudi government policy to murder migrants, these killings would be a crime against humanity,” notes the report.

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