The Saudi Arabian government is like a murderous problem child. Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse, they find a new and awful way to shock us.
A new report from Human Rights Watch indicates that Saudi border guards have 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 officials are allowing the murder of hundreds of women and children out of view of the rest of the world while they spend billions on sports-washing to try to improve their image.
An estimated 750,000 Ethiopians live and work in Saudi Arabia. Many migrate for economic reasons, but a number have fled because of serious human rights abuses by their government, including during the recent, brutal armed conflict in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia. Ethiopian migrants have attempted the dangerous migration route for decades, crossing from the Horn of Africa, across the Gulf of Aden, through Yemen and into Saudi Arabia. It is estimated that well over 90% of the migrants on this route are Ethiopian.
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. Saudi border guards also fired explosive weapons at migrants who had just been released from temporary Saudi detention and were attempting to flee back to Yemen.
-from Human Rights Watch’s recent report, “They Fired on Us Like Rain”
Read the full Human Rights Watch report to get an idea of how depraved and brutal the Saudi government is in its treatment of desperate migrants. This is the same Saudi government trying to buy legitimacy through sports-washing and diplomacy with apartheid Israel.
Side Items
New York’s New Megajail: New Yorkers will soon have the distinct dishonor of a massive new jail, rumored to be the tallest correctional facility in the world! City officials like their turtle of a mayor Eric Adams say this is a necessary project if they’re going to close Rikers Island, the notoriously abusive jail that the city council voted to shut down in 2019. That vote ordered Rikers be replaced by 2027 with four smaller jails throughout the city, including this tall eyesore in Chinatown. New York mayor/turtle cosplayer Eric Adams initially pledged to oppose this new jail when campaigning for office. Of course he flip-flopped once he took office and now the construction has begun. Opponents argue this jail will be an eyesore that could harm some of New York’s most vulnerable immigrants, and that the multibillion-dollar price could be far better spent elsewhere…like literally anywhere else
Eyes on Palestine: Apartheid Israeli forces invaded a town in the north of the West Bank this morning, leading to fighting that killed a 17-year-old Palestinian. The apartheid army also released the results of a military investigation into the death of a soldier killed during a major raid into the Jenin refugee camp last month. The investigation found that the soldier was killed by a bullet fired by apartheid Israeli forces. So they murder one of their own with friendly fire and then invade Palestinian neighborhoods to distract from it? Meanwhile, in the southern West Bank, the apartheid lovers captured two Palestinians who they suspect of carrying out a shooting attack earlier this week that killed an Israeli woman and wounded a man near the Palestinian city of Hebron