Saudi border guards accused of brutally torturing, raping, and killing thousands of Ethiopian migrants at the border with Yemen received training from the German federal police service and the US military, according to a report by The Guardian.
Furthermore, under the terms of the training agreement with Riyadh, the US army was required to monitor how its training was being used, while border guards were only allowed to operate defensively to protect themselves and their sites from an attack.
“The US army Security Assistance Command provided border guards training, which had been funded for a period from 2015-2023, with the funding period ending in July of this year,” a US official told the British outlet.
Reports from multiple human rights agencies have detailed the magnitude of the abuses committed by the US and German-trained guards.
Ethiopian migrants are tortured, lined up against walls and shot at for amusement, executed, and even targeted with explosives, a report by the Mixed Migration Centre (MMC) detailed in June, adding that girls as young as 13 have been raped by Saudi security forces “and pushed back across the border into Yemen without their clothes.”
A “clandestine cemetery” in north Yemen near the Saudi border reportedly contains the remains of up to 10,000 migrants. The MMC report includes corroborations from several Ethiopian migrants.
The genocide again received international attention last week when Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a report documenting how “Saudi border guards opened fire on Ethiopian migrants as they tried to cross from Yemen.”
In one case cited in the HRW report, migrants said Saudi guards had asked them which limb they preferred to be shot in. In another case, a 17-year-old boy said guards had forced him and another migrant to rape two girls as the guards looked on.
The Guardian cites anonymous sources as saying that Saudi authorities have increasingly treated illegal incursions in its borders as a “counter-terrorism issue,” authorizing the use of lethal force.
The news outlet was also told that Saudi Arabia “employs extensive and centrally monitored electronic surveillance of the border area, meaning it should be able to distinguish groups of trafficked civilians from those involved in armed incursions from Yemen or drug smuggling.”
HRW said in its report that if it is established that the genocide was an official policy of the kingdom, it would amount to a “crime against humanity.”
Earlier this week, the New York Times(NYT) revealed that US diplomats began receiving horrific reports last fall with information detailing the Saudi genocide of Ethiopian migrants on the border with Yemen but still chose to remain quiet.
US State Department officials claim that US diplomats privately raised the issue with their Saudi counterparts and asked them to investigate. The NYT states, “It remains unclear whether those discussions have affected Saudi actions.”
Among the diplomats briefed by the UN was Steven Fagin, the US ambassador to Yemen. The UN also shared information with others at the State Department and with diplomats from France, Germany, Holland, Sweden, and the European Union.
The NYT noted further that Inside Yemen, the border killings are widely known. Some attacks are reported on Yemeni television, and many wounded are treated in Yemeni hospitals.
Source: The Cradle