Migrants killed in Saudi Arabia: a power sheltered from Western criticism

We meet them in rags with only a black plastic bag for luggage. Under a stifling heat, they walk in the direction of an Eldorado that some will never reach. It was the summer of 2021. Ethiopian migrants had just washed up on the Yemeni coast, near the Bab al-Mandab Strait, where Africa and the Arabian Peninsula meet. They were already fleeing a war – that of Tigray – before being trapped in another conflict, in Yemen. Their dream was to join the rich neighboring Arabia, in the hope of finding a job allowing them to save a little, before returning home.

Not without difficulty, some manage to cross the Saudi border, further north. Others like Alan, met at the same time in a hospital in Aden, the big city in southern Yemen, were turned back before. After three days at sea, and almost a week of walking along the Red Sea, the man had ended up crossing the front line of the Yemeni war, before being injured in…