00:00 in the studio is Rob Parsons, our chief foreign editor.
00:02 Robert, what exactly are these findings telling us?
00:05 Well, I mean, this is a truly awful story.
00:08 It's not just coming from Human Rights Watch.
00:10 Even before Human Rights Watch published this report,
00:13 there were complaints made last year
00:15 by rapporteurs for the United Nations, which
00:18 were sent to Saudi Arabia, and very recently, as well,
00:21 the international organization for migrations,
00:24 Missing Migrants Project.
00:26 Both the latter and Human Rights Watch
00:29 are talking about anything between 650 and 800
00:33 documented cases in which Saudi security forces have killed,
00:38 either through small arms fire or through explosive weapons
00:43 like mortars or artillery.
00:46 Men, women, and children, all of them defenseless,
00:49 trying to cross the border into Saudi Arabia from Yemen.
00:52 Most of them, as the report just said, Ethiopians.
00:54 One of the authors of the report,
00:57 the Human Rights Watch report, described the findings
01:00 as obscene.
01:02 And remember, this, too, is a woman
01:03 who spends her time documenting just these sort of incidents,
01:06 migrants trying to cross borders.
01:09 She said she had never come across anything
01:11 like it in her experience.
01:13 Some of those reports we heard about people, migrants,
01:17 who had just been released by the Saudi forces
01:21 after they'd allegedly crossed the border from Yemen
01:23 into Saudi Arabia.
01:24 They walked about another kilometre
01:26 towards the border with Yemen to go back.
01:29 And just before they managed to get back,
01:31 allegedly the Saudi security forces
01:33 started shelling them with artillery fire
01:37 and other weapons.
01:39 It was raining ammunition, fire, said
01:43 one of the people who was there at that moment.
01:47 Absolutely extraordinary accusations
01:49 being made against the Saudis.
01:51 And what has been the response from the Saudis as a result?
01:54 Well, you know, these are very, very serious accusations
01:58 that are being made.
02:00 What appears to be a systematic pattern
02:02 of large-scale indiscriminate cross-border killings
02:06 using artillery shelling and small arms fire
02:09 by Saudi security forces against migrants.
02:11 So, I mean, the question that arises
02:14 is, was this part of a deliberate policy
02:17 by the Saudi government to kill migrants trying
02:20 to cross into the country?
02:22 That is a very serious accusation to make
02:25 and would amount to a crime against humanity.
02:28 The Saudis are categorically denying it at this stage.
02:32 But the evidence that's building up
02:34 is going to be very, very hard to brush off.
02:37 You know, with Human Rights Watch talking to 42 witnesses,
02:43 many who are actually there themselves
02:45 when the attacks happened.
02:47 They've got photographs.
02:49 They've got video.
02:53 We saw the graves by the side of some of these tracks
02:56 across the border, which have multiplied in recent times.
03:00 But this, too, at a time when Saudi Arabia
03:03 has been able to come back in from the cold,
03:05 has been rehabilitated.
03:07 It's almost five years since Jamal Khashoggi,
03:10 the Saudi dissident, was killed at the Saudi consulate
03:14 in Istanbul, murdered and dismembered.
03:17 And for a long time, Saudi Arabia was, as President Biden
03:20 of the United States put it, a pariah
03:23 in the international community.
03:24 Not anymore.
03:25 Saudi Arabia has been coming back with sports watching,
03:28 where it's pouring billions and billions of dollars
03:31 into big global events to improve
03:34 its image around the world.
03:36 Joe Biden going to Saudi Arabia, despite everything
03:39 he said about Saudi Arabia being a pariah last year.
03:43 And now we've got Rishi Sunak, the British prime minister,
03:48 saying he is going to welcome Mohammed bin Salman,
03:52 the Saudi crown prince, any time soon.
03:55 So this comes at a very bad time for the Saudis.
03:58 Brushing this off is not going to be easy.
04:00 Rob Parsons, thank you.
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