Riyadh Has Sentenced 520 Ethiopians to Death, and Africa Looks Away

Five hundred and twenty Ethiopians have been sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia for drug trafficking. Five hundred and twenty young men, most of them sent abroad to find work, are sleeping in cells knowing the blade could fall at any moment. And we Africans are looking the other way.

This figure was made public by the government of Tigray, a northern region of Ethiopia, on Thursday, November 12. It is a regional count, not a statistic published by Riyadh, which does not disclose information about its condemned prisoners. The Tigrayan government is appealing for clemency from the Saudi authorities. That clemency must be secured as quickly as possible, because the execution machine is not slowing down.

The Countdown

On Wednesday, November 11, the kingdom announced the execution of two Ethiopians for drug trafficking. A week earlier, five others had been put to death for the same offense. Before that, five had been executed in June and five more in July. By adding up these official announcements, an AFP tally counts 34 executions this year. Ethiopians are, by a wide margin, the foreign nationals most affected by the death penalty in the kingdom.

Thirty-four men executed in a single year. Thirty-four families who learned the news from a press release, a phone call, or a silence. Behind every number is a mother waiting for a call that will never come, a father who will never know exactly what happened in the courtroom, a child who will grow up without ever seeing their parent again.

These men took what is known as the "Eastern Route." It connects the Horn of Africa to the Arabian Peninsula by crossing Yemen, a perilous path marked by smugglers, shipwrecks, and arbitrary detention. Thousands of Ethiopians have taken it to fill low-skilled jobs in the kingdom. They were looking for a wage to feed the families they left behind. Many found a prison cell.

A Justice System That Leaves No Chance

Riyadh claims that the death penalty is necessary to maintain order and that it is applied only after all appeals have been exhausted. That argument collapses in the face of the facts. For years, Human Rights Watch has been calling on the kingdom to commute the death sentences handed down to dozens of foreigners for drug offenses described as "non-violent." None of these men killed anyone. None took up a weapon against civilians. They were caught in the net of a trade of which they were often the last links, the poorest, the easiest to replace.

The strength of a rule-of-law state is not measured by the severity of its executioners. It is measured by the quality of the trial, access to a lawyer, an interpreter who truly conveys what the accused is saying, consular assistance, and the proportionality of the sentence. On every one of these criteria, the families of the condemned have doubts, and they are right to have them.

We are not asking Saudi Arabia to copy our democracies. We are asking it to honor its own international commitments, and the human dignity that knows no borders.

When Our Governments Abandon Their Citizens

The question no one in Addis Ababa wants to ask is simple: what is the Ethiopian state doing for its citizens in Riyadh? How many supervised labor agreements have been signed? How many recruitment agencies have been sanctioned for sending young people to countries where they had no protection? How many diplomatic negotiations have been conducted, publicly, to save human lives?

The fact that the complaint comes from a regional government, and not from the federal state, says a great deal about the fragmentation of the national response. A nation that does not protect its children abroad has already failed inside its own borders, where poverty, unemployment, and the lack of opportunity push young people onto the Eastern Route.

And the African Union? Silence. The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights has a clear mandate to denounce violations, including when they are committed outside the continent against our nationals. Where is its voice?

One Africa, the Same Silences

This tragedy is not an isolated case. While Riyadh counts its condemned, Niger, which claims to champion sovereignty, has just released Serge Mathurin Adou, an Ivorian journalist employed by the channel Canal 3. He had disappeared in Niamey on September 1, 2024. A few weeks later, Burkina Faso's Minister of Security, Mahamadou Sana, accused him of being involved in a "plot" against the country. He was charged on November 11, 2024, with "undermining the security of the State," and then sentenced to two years in prison in November 2025, in a context of tension between Côte d'Ivoire and the Alliance of Sahel States.

Two years in prison for a journalist. Two years of enforced disappearance, of accusations without public evidence, of families living in anguish. In the name of sovereignty, the press is locked up. In the name of the fight against terrorism, those who ask questions are silenced. And then we are surprised that the trust of the peoples collapses.

In northern Nigeria, the situation is just as appalling. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that more than 60,000 people have crossed the border into Niger since the beginning of the year, fleeing insecurity, hunger, and climate disruption. The country already hosts more than 500,000 internally displaced people. UNHCR registered 3,400 new arrivals in October alone, but only 5% of these refugees have been officially recorded. Without registration, there is no targeted aid, no protection, no rights. To meet the most urgent needs, the agency is requesting 2 million dollars, out of a global appeal of more than 11 million. In the Diffa region, grain harvests are expected to fall short, and malnutrition is already striking children.

These three stories tell the same story: Africans paying the price of negligence, arbitrariness, and indifference, whether that comes from their own states or from neighboring ones.

What Works, and What We Must Demand

Models exist. Botswana built its prosperity on stable institutions, rigorous management of its resources, and a relative respect for the rule of law. Mauritius has shown that a small island state, open to investment and equipped with an independent judiciary, can become an upper-middle-income economy. Senegal has proven that peaceful democratic alternation strengthens trust and opens horizons for its youth. These are proof that better is possible, provided we want it.

For migrants, the path is known. Bilateral labor agreements that are transparent and legally binding, with verifiable contracts, guaranteed consular assistance, and accessible remedies. Licensed recruitment agencies whose leaders are criminally liable for abuses. A national migrant registry and a consular service that is truly adequately resourced. Information campaigns in rural areas, so that no one takes the Eastern Route without knowing what awaits them. The job market must be open, but never at the cost of human life.

For Niger and Nigeria, they need free press institutions, a justice system that does not serve those in power, and rapid humanitarian registration, backed by funding commensurate with the crisis. A state that protects neither its journalists nor its displaced people has no legitimacy to speak of sovereignty.

What We Demand

We call on Riyadh to immediately suspend drug-related executions and to commute the sentences of those convicted of non-violent offenses, in accordance with its international obligations. We demand the publication of names, case files, and charges. We demand full and independent consular access.

We call on Addis Ababa to send a high-level delegation to Riyadh, to publicly name those responsible for fraudulent recruitment, and to report to Parliament every month on the status of its nationals detained abroad. We call on the African Union to appoint a special envoy for the protection of African migrants in the Middle East and the Gulf.

We call on the governments of Niger and Côte d'Ivoire to tell the truth about the Serge Mathurin Adou case, to stop criminalizing journalism, and to restore trust between the peoples of the region.

And we ask you, reader. Do not let these numbers become just one more statistic. Share this article. Hold your deputies, your journalists, and your representatives at the African Union accountable. Ask your government what it is doing for its own people abroad. A continent that accepts its children being executed in general indifference has not yet understood its own worth.

Five hundred and twenty men are waiting. The question is no longer whether we are informed. The question is whether we will act.

Based on reporting by ACSS-EMAIL