Saudi Arabia’s forces are accused of using indiscriminate force against migrants on their borders, with reports of deaths and injuries and multiple accounts of women being raped.

Ethiopian migrants attempting to cross from neighbouring Yemen between 2019 and 2024 have given accounts to the Guardian of coming under machine gun fire and of seeing bodies rotting in the border area.

“I personally saw three people die next to me,” said one Ethiopian, who attempted to cross at night into Saudi’s Najran province with dozens of others in 2022. “One of my legs was blown away by the Saudi fire. There were body parts of the injured and the dead all around me.”

Another migrant talked of sustaining shrapnel wounds to his leg and back. A third alleged witnessing the rape of three Ethiopian women by men in Saudi border guard uniforms. Others described beatings and sexual assault.