Thousands of Ethiopian migrants get beaten, starved in Saudi prisons

SANAA, Feb. 09 (YPA) – France 24 published a report revealed a situation of thousands of Ethiopian migrants got beaten and starved after being detained in Saudi prisons.

The report noted that they live in miserable conditions to the extent that their lives to be threatened.

“Ethiopian migrants are crowded in overcrowded and unsanitary prisons with ill-treatment, beatings, and lack of food and medical care, which led to the death of 10 of them inside detention facilities, including a child in the Shumaisi detention center in Jeddah, the report said.

It published a number of photos and videos showing, in particular, a very frail man and prisoners forced to sleep on the floor near dirty toilets.

According to the explains Arafat Jibril Bakrii, the head of the Oromo Human Rights Organization (the Oromo are an ethnic group in Ethiopia), the detainees received only a small piece of bread and water, which in turn is distributed in scarce quantities.

At the beginning of June, the Saudi authorities launched a massive campaign of arrests against Ethiopian immigrants, in the streets, cafes and homes, even those who are in legal residence.

After the arbitrary measures, a bilateral agreement signed with Saudi Arabia, the Ethiopian authorities periodically organized evacuation flights for their nationals.

On July 7, 2021, more than 35 flights took place towards Addis Ababa for evacuating forty thousand Ethiopians from Saudi Arabia, according to the International Organization for Migration (OEM).

The official spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia, Dean Mufti, stated that his country considered this wave of deportations as one of the ways of pressure by the Arab League to prevent Ethiopia from the dam reservoir for its controversial Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

AA