Saudi Arabia pardons 2,000 Ethiopians. Hundreds still on death row

Riyadh (AsiaNews) – The Saudi authorities have granted a royal amnesty to around 2,000 Ethiopian prisoners who have been held in the country’s jails for some time.

The news was announced by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Addis Ababa in a statement, which added that, following the decree issued by the authorities in Riyadh, Ethiopian officials have already begun the repatriation of the 1,971 compatriots who had been held in prison until now. However, whilst this news is being received with satisfaction and hope, the dramatic situation—both human and legal—of the many Ethiopian migrants detained on death row in Saudi Arabia remains unresolved, as they await the carrying out of the death penalty amidst suffering and false hopes.

The detainees, some of whom were contacted by Middle East Eye (MME), which reported their testimonies, are often arrested on minor drug charges for being found in possession of khat, a mild stimulant commonly used throughout East Africa but illegal in Saudi Arabia. The Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has stated that “constant diplomatic and consular efforts” have led to the granting of royal pardons.

The government in Addis Ababa has also stated that it remains “in close contact” with the Saudi authorities “regarding issues affecting Ethiopian citizens in the Kingdom, including those involved in legal proceedings and judicial matters." This contact involves “the highest levels of government” and aims to resolve positively a number of unresolved issues and a whole series of legal cases that weigh heavily on the future—and indeed the very lives—of Ethiopian citizens who have emigrated to the Kingdom.

At the highest levels of the African country, the news of the amnesty granted by Riyadh has been welcomed, but the authorities’ thoughts—and attention—are focused on those on death row in Saudi prisons. There are hundreds of migrants languishing in the Khamis Mushait detention centre, in the southwest of the kingdom.

According to a recent report by Amnesty International, the Saudi authorities have carried out around a hundred death sentences since the start of the year; of these, at least 61 were for drug-related offences. Executions are usually carried out by sword, although in recent years the practice of public beheadings appears to have declined.

Hailay Berhane, a migrant from the Tigray region of Ethiopia and a detainee at Khamis Mushait, told Mee via the Imo messaging app that he and other Ethiopians had been “forced to sign documents in Arabic without understanding their content."

In some cases, moreover, they were “beaten by the security forces” to force them to sign the "confessions." “They handed me 41 kg of drugs,” he said, “and forced me to believe they were mine, making me sign documents written in Arabic whose contents I didn’t even understand,” he explained, recalling those moments three years ago when he was detained by the Saudi security forces.

High unemployment rates, an economy in crisis due to the war, and recurring conflicts are driving young Ethiopians – particularly those from the Tigray region – to undertake the dangerous journey to wealthy Saudi Arabia, where they hope to find work. “Political instability, armed conflicts, and the economic crisis are the main factors affecting the lives of young Ethiopians,” said Yared Hailemariam, a local human rights expert. “They are also forcibly recruited,” he added, “for military training and deployed as soldiers in both internal conflicts and cross-border wars.”

Many Ethiopians then end up breaking Saudi Arabia’s strict anti-drug laws; they are framed for crimes they did not commit or forced to make false confessions. Gebremariam Gebrezgiabher, the father of Kibrom, an Ethiopian man executed by hanging in Saudi Arabia following a death sentence, said: “As a father, it was very difficult to learn of his death, especially given the manner in which he was killed. His passing,” he concludes, “has taken a part of me with it."

At least 356 people were killed by the state in Saudi Arabia last year. Of the 240 who had been convicted of drug offences, 188 were foreigners. Taha al-Hajji, legal director of the European-Saudi Organisation for Human Rights, explains: “Capital trials in Saudi Arabia fail to meet even the minimum guarantees of fairness. Defendants are denied legal representation and adequate translation, leading to migrants being sentenced to death without understanding the proceedings, often on the basis of confessions extracted under torture. This is not justice; it is state violence, inflicted on defenceless people."

The United Nations International Organisation for Migration (IOM) considers the corridor passing through Djibouti, then continuing by sea via the Bab el-Mandeb Strait or the Gulf of Aden to Yemen, to be one of the busiest and most dangerous migration routes in the world. Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia have long been collaborating on migration, carrying out large-scale repatriations between 2017 and 2022, with around 500,000 Ethiopians deported, as explained by Ayla Bonfiglio, head of the Mixed Migration Centre (MMC) for Eastern and Southern Africa. In 2022, the two governments agreed to repatriate over 100,000 Ethiopians living in Saudi Arabia without residence permits, many of whom were being held in detention centres that human rights organisations have described as overcrowded and rife with abuse. At the time, the IOM estimated that there were 750,000 Ethiopians in Saudi Arabia, of whom around 450,000 had entered the country irregularly.

Source: asianews.it, Dario Salvi, July 16, 2026

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