Human Rights Watch has released a report alleging that Saudi border patrol agents killed hundreds of asylum-seekers while attempting to cross into Yemen.
According to the allegation, hundreds of individuals have been killed by gunfire while trying to enter Saudi Arabia from Ethiopia via the war-torn country of Yemen.
According to the BBC, migrants have seen bodies abandoned on the paths and have had limbs amputated by gunfire.
Previous charges of systematic killings were also dismissed by Saudi Arabia.
Graphic accounts of migrants being fired at and even targeted with explosive devices by Saudi police and soldiers on Yemen’s rough northern border with Saudi Arabia can be found in a Human Rights Watch study titled They Fired On Us Like Rain.
According to multiple migrants the BBC has talked with, large groups of Ethiopians, including many women and children, came under fire while trying to cross the border at night in search of work in the oil-rich nation.
“The shooting went on and on,” 21-year-old Mustafa Soufia Mohammed told the BBC.
He said that members of his group of 45 migrants were killed when they came under fire while attempting to cross the border in July of last year.
“I didn’t even notice I was shot,” he said, “but when I tried to get up and walk, part of my leg was not with me.”
