Ethiopians abandoned after deportation from Saudi Arabia: HRW

Ethiopian migrants who braved death-defying land and sea journeys to find work in Saudi Arabia are being deported en masse with nothing but the clothes on their backs, Human Rights Watch said Thursday.

A report based on interviews with deportees in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa documents exploitation, trafficking and violence that begins from the moment the migrants set off across the Red Sea or Gulf of Aden to reach the Arabian Peninsula.

It says officials in Ethiopia, Yemen and Saudi Arabia have done little to protect migrants from abuses at the hands of traffickers and security forces.

And it says they have failed to ease the return of hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians caught up in a large-scale Saudi deportation campaign that began in November 2017.

"Many Ethiopians who hoped for a better life in Saudi Arabia face unspeakable dangers along the journey, including death at sea, torture, and all manners of abuses," said Felix Horne, senior Africa researcher for Human Rights Watch.

"Saudi Arabia has summarily returned hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians to Addis Ababa who have little to show for their journey except debts and trauma."
"At the border there are many bodies rotting, decomposing," said one 26-year-old migrant. "It is like a graveyard."