520 Ethiopians awaiting execution for drug trafficking in Saudi Arabia

Around 520 Ethiopians sentenced to death for drug trafficking are currently awaiting execution in Saudi Arabia, the government of Tigray, a region in northern Ethiopia, said Thursday.

Most of those facing execution come from the Tigray region, said Hayish Sibagadis, head of the Youth Affairs Bureau of the Tigray regional government, at a press conference.

Riyadh announced on Wednesday that it had executed two Ethiopians for drug trafficking, a week after executing five others for the same crime.

This followed five Ethiopians executed in June and another five in July.

In total, 34 Ethiopians have been executed in Saudi Arabia in 2026, according to an AFP tally based on official statements.

“Those sentenced to death were either deceived by brokers and drawn into drug trafficking or were simply accompanying people who were carrying drugs”, he said.

“Most were tried without a lawyer, in a language they did not understand, and without an interpreter,” he added.

Ethiopia, which maintains good relations with Saudi Arabia, should ask Riyadh to “show mercy and spare their lives”, he said.

The Ethiopian federal government did not respond to a request for comment from AFP.

Thousands of Ethiopians work in low-skilled jobs in Saudi Arabia. Most of them take the perilous “Eastern Route” from the Horn of Africa to the oil-rich kingdom via Yemen.

Tigray is a region in northern Ethiopia ravaged by a war between 2020 and 2022 that claimed at least 600,000 lives, according to African Union estimates.