Report: Yemen, Ethiopia Wars Prompt Illegal Migrant Surge into Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabian security forces arrested 150 people for trying to illegally cross the border into the kingdom between February 24 and March 2, “of whom 46 percent were Yemeni nationals [and] 42 percent were Ethiopians,” the Saudi Gazette reported this weekend.

Saudi customs officials led an initiative to ward off illegal border crossings into the kingdom and prevent or punish other violations of Saudi law from late February to early March, according to the Saudi Gazette. The English online newspaper detailed the efforts on March 5, writing:

Around 13,771 violators of residency and labor laws and border security regulations have been arrested in various regions of the Kingdom within a week. The arrests were made during joint field campaigns carried out by various units of security forces and the General Directorate of Passports (Jawazat) during the period from February 24 to March 2.

Those arrested included 7,163 violators of the residency laws, about 4,542 violators of the border security regulations, and more than 2,066 violators of the labor law.

A total of 150 people were arrested while trying to cross the border into the Kingdom, of whom 46 percent were Yemeni nationals, 42 percent were Ethiopians, and 12 percent belonged to other nationalities while 237 people were arrested for trying to flee the Kingdom crossing borders. The security forces also arrested 8 people who were involved in transporting violators and giving them shelter.

Saudi Arabia’s recent influx of attempted migrant entries from both neighboring Yemen and nearby Ethiopia is due, in part, to the nations’ close proximity to Saudi Arabia and their respective political conflicts. Yemen and Ethiopia have both suffered from civil wars in recent years that caused resultant humanitarian crises.

Saudi Arabia is located on the Arabian Peninsula, which is also home to Yemen. The nation of Yemen neighbors Saudi Arabia to its south and is separated from the Horn of Africa by the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, which itself divides the Red Sea from the Gulf of Aden. Ethiopia is located in the Horn of Africa, which is the continent’s easternmost peninsula.

“Since violence broke out in late March 2015, conditions in Yemen — already one of the poorest countries in the Middle East — have continued to deteriorate,” according to the U.N. Refugee Agency.

“Yemen … remains the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Eight years of war have driven more than 4 million people from their homes and 20.7 million are in dire need of humanitarian assistance,” the U.N. Refugee Agency’s regularly updated website states.

“Despite the conflict, Yemen hosts 137,000 refugees and asylum seekers from Somalia and Ethiopia, making it the world’s second largest host of Somali refugees,” the U.N. notes.

Ethiopia’s latest civil war broke out more recently than Yemen’s in November 2020, though it has already displaced nearly 2.5 million people and created its own formidable refugee crisis.

Thousands of Ethiopians displaced by their country’s ongoing civil war have been forced to seek shelter in neighboring countries such as Sudan.