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Image posted, AFP
The Ethiopian immigrants were expelled by Yemeni rebels who forced them to cross the border into Saudi Arabia.
At least three people have died in detention centers housing thousands of Ethiopian migrants in Saudi Arabia, Amnesty International has said.
The human rights organization said the migrants were treated with “unimaginable cruelty,” which included restraining every two detainees from each other and having them use their cell floors as bathrooms.
The organization also called on the Saudi authorities to improve conditions in the detention centers.
The detainees were expelled from the neighboring Republic of Yemen. The organization said Ethiopian migrants were working in areas in northern Yemen, but the Houthis forced them to leave the country.
According to the United Nations International Organization for Migration, around 2,000 Ethiopians are still stranded on the Yemeni side of the Yemen-Saudi border without food, water or medical care.
Thousands of Ethiopians go to Saudi Arabia for work, making the kingdom a major investor and a major source of foreign remittances to Ethiopia.
The kingdom is also cracking down on illegal immigrants.
According to the Migration Organization, there were as many as 500,000 illegal immigrants entering the kingdom from Ethiopia when the Saudi authorities launched their campaign in 2017.
The French News Agency says an average of 10,000 Ethiopians were deported per month, but Ethiopian officials requested a deadline earlier this year due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
In recent months, Ethiopia has struggled to provide more quarantine places to receive returnees and ensure that they do not carry the virus with them.
Dead bodies
Amnesty International listened to 12 detained Ethiopian migrants speak about conditions in the Al-Dayer detention center in Jizan Central Prison and in Jeddah and Makkah prisons.
The organization said conditions are dire, especially in Al-Dayer and Jizan, where detainees speak of 350 people participating in a cell.
Image posted, Reuters
Amnesty International has called on the Ethiopian government to expeditiously facilitate the procedures for the voluntary return of its citizens.
The organization says two migrants reported that they saw the bodies of three people in the center of Dyer, one of an Ethiopian man, the other a Yemeni and the third a Somali.
“However, all those interviewed by the organization said that they knew that there were those who died in the detention centers, and four said that they themselves saw bodies,” the organization’s report said.
The organization said these accusations were confirmed by video clips, photographs and other satellite images.
The human rights organization called on the Ethiopian government to quickly facilitate the procedures for the voluntary return of its citizens, as well as asking the Saudi authorities to improve conditions in detention centers at the same time.
Tzion Teclu, Ethiopia’s minister of state for foreign affairs, told Agence France-Presse last month that her country plans to recover 2,000 detained migrants by mid-October.
He added that the total number of Ethiopian immigrants in Saudi detention centers reached 16,000 earlier this year, but that number has been declining since then.
Three migrants told Agence France-Presse last month that Ethiopian diplomats visiting detained migrants had warned them to stop disclosing their conditions of detention.
