Ethiopian migrants seeking asylum or a better life in Gulf States, walk along a highway to Saadah province to cross into Saudi Arabia, on August 23, 2023 on the outskirts of Sana'a, Yemen.
(Beirut) – Saudi authorities executed five Ethiopian migrants for nonlethal drug-related offenses on July 27, 2026, without due process, Human Rights Watch said today. Saudi authorities have executed at least 17 Ethiopian nationals since the beginning of 2026 on drug-related charges.
At least 79 more remain at imminent risk of execution on similar charges. Saudi authorities have executed at least 116 people in 2026 as of July 27, according to the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights.
“Saudi authorities are executing marginalized Ethiopian migrants after court hearings that sometimes barely last a few minutes without a lawyer or a translator,” said Joey Shea, senior Saudi Arabia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Dozens of vulnerable migrants remain at risk of imminent execution after trials that were barely trials at all, in a system that treats their lives as disposable.”
Since April, Human Rights Watch has interviewed more than a dozen informed sources about the cases of Ethiopian migrants facing imminent execution for nonlethal drug-related offenses, including two with direct knowledge of the most recent executions. Saudi authorities said the most recent executions were for “smuggling hashish.” The sources said that all five men were from Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, where rights abuses have persisted and the humanitarian situation remains dire following the 2020-2022 armed conflict. Escalating tensions between the Ethiopian federal government and Tigrayan authorities have raised fears of renewed atrocities in the region. The five migrants fled Tigray and had taken the dangerous eastern migration route across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen.
Human Rights W
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