3 people die, including Yemeni in Saudi prison

At three people, including a Yemeni, have died in a Saudi migrant prison, according to a report released on Friday by Amnesty International.

The  organization called for the release of the migrants and the facilitation of their return to their country.

“Thousands of Ethiopian migrants who have left their homes in search of a better life have instead faced unimaginable cruelty everywhere,” said Marie Forrester, researcher and advisor on refugee and migrant rights at Amnesty International

According to the International Organization for Migration (IMO), there were up to half a million Ethiopians in Saudi Arabia before the kingdom launched a campaign against irregular migrants in 2017.

An average of about 10,000 Ethiopians have since been expelled a month until Ethiopia requested that deportations be suspended this year with the spread of the new Coronavirus.

According to the report, two of the detainees said they had seen the bodies of three Ethiopians, a Yemeni and a Somali in the al- Dyer detention centre in JIzan province, but all those interviewed by the organization said they had learned of the deaths of people in custody.

A total of 16,000 Ethiopians were detained in these centres this year, but their number has declined, according to Ethiopian authorities.

Ethiopia had planned to transfer 2,000 detained migrants by mid-October, but Addis Ababa was careful not to anger Riyadh, a key investor in Ethiopia.

An Ethiopian migrant last month, via a mobile phone that was smuggled into a detention centre in Saudi Arabia, recounted difficult living conditions in overcrowded cells full of diseases, food shortages and a rise in suicides.

E.M