Yemen: Houthis Kill, Expel Ethiopian Migrants

The majority of the victims are Oromo Refugee as heard in the HRW video

Saudis Fire on Survivors, Detain Hundreds in Appalling Conditions

(Beirut) – Houthi forces in April 2020 forcibly expelled thousands of Ethiopian migrants from northern Yemen using Covid-19 as a pretext, killing dozens and forcing them to the Saudi border, Human Rights Watch said today. Saudi border guards then fired on the fleeing migrants, killing dozens more, while hundreds of survivors escaped to a mountainous border area.

Ethiopian migrants told Human Rights Watch that after they spent days stranded without food or water, Saudi officials allowed hundreds to enter the country, but then arbitrarily detained them in unsanitary and abusive facilities without the ability to legally challenge their detention or eventual deportation to Ethiopia. Hundreds of others, including children, may still be stranded in the mountainous border region.

“The lethal disregard Houthi and Saudi forces have shown civilians during Yemen’s armed conflict was replayed in April with Ethiopian migrants at the Yemen-Saudi border,” said Nadia Hardman, refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “United Nations agencies need to step in to address the immediate threats to the Ethiopian migrants and press for accountability for those responsible for the killings and other abuses.”

In June and July, Human Rights Watch interviewed 19 Ethiopian migrants, including 13 men, 4 women, and 2 girls, currently in Saudi Arabia or Ethiopia. The Houthi armed group, which took over the capital, Sanaa, in September 2014 in an armed conflict that a Saudi-led coalition joined in March 2015, have for many years controlled Yemen’s northwest border areas.

 

Ansar Allah (Houthi) response to Human Rights WatchAnsar Allah (Houthi) response to Human Rights Watch 

 

Migrants told Human Rights Watch that on or about April 16, Houthi fighters in green military uniforms brutally rounded up thousands of Ethiopians in al-Ghar, an unofficial migrant settlement area in Saada governorate. The Houthi forces, who were regularly seen patrolling the area, forced the migrants into pickup trucks and drove them to the Saudi border, firing small arms and light weapons anyone who tried to flee.

Witnesses said that Houthi fighters screamed that the migrants were “coronavirus carriers” and had to leave al-Ghar within hours. “They [Houthi forces] created chaos,” said an Ethiopian woman. “It was early in the morning [on April 16] and they told us to leave in two hours. Most people left, but I stayed. But after two hours, they started firing bullets and rockets – I saw two people killed.”

Another woman, who was pregnant and traveling with her young child, said the Houthi forces were using “rockets” to clear the area: “There were lots of Houthi soldiers. There were more than 50 trucks. They were firing a mortar which you put on the ground and it fires. Everyone started to run to escape. I ran with a group of 45 people – and 40 people were killed in my group. Only five of us escaped. They were not firing guns, just these mortars.”

Twelve of the migrants interviewed witnessed killings of migrants or saw their bodies, but the number killed could not be determined. Migrants who managed to return to al-Ghar found their tent settlement and surroundings destroyed. Human Rights Watch reviewed satellite imagery recorded immediately before, during, and after the alleged attack, and observed widespread destruction of over 300 tents and houses consistent with witness accounts.

Once migrants approached within one to two hundred meters of the border, Saudi border guards in gray and tan uniforms started firing at them with what witnesses described as mortar shells and rocket launchers. They said that Houthi forces responded by firing at the Saudi border guards and at any migrants who tried to escape from the chaos of the fighting back into Yemen.

Full story Yemen: Houthis Kill, Expel Ethiopian Migrants