Germany ended a training programme for Saudi border forces, who have been implicated in the mass killing of migrants at the country’s border with Yemen, after it was alerted to reports of “possible massive human rights violations”, the German interior ministry has said.
In a statement to the Guardian, the ministry said training undertaken by the federal police service for the Saudi border force had been “discontinued after reports of possible massive human rights violations became known and, as a precaution, are no longer included in the current training programme [for Saudi security forces]”.
The statement added: “At no point did any instruction or training by the federal police of the Saudi Arabian border guard take place in the border area between Saudi Arabia and Yemen.”
The German statement follows mounting international concern over allegations by UN experts and human rights groups that Saudi border forces have killed hundreds of people-trafficked migrants trying to cross the border in the last three years, claims Saudi Arabia has denied.
Although it was not clear when Germany decided to end the training, reports that Saudi security forces were firing on migrants attempting to cross the border from Yemen first began emerging in 2020, and increased in 2022-23.
A letter sent by a group of UN rapporteurs to Saudi Arabia in October last year suggested that hundreds of mainly Ethiopian trafficked migrants had been killed by Saudi forces at the border, allegations echoed in a report by Human Rights Watch in August.
This week the Guardian reported that the US and Germany had been involved in long-term training programmes for forces commanded by the Saudi ministry of the interior and responsible for land and maritime security, including its border force.
While the US state department insisted it has not trained members of Saudi Arabia’s border force involved in land security, it was unable to answer whether other ministry of the interior forces who have received US training had been deployed to the border, citing a lack of information.
In a statement to the Guardian the state department said it was “not aware of any Saudi land border guards currently participating in [US government] training”.
“As far as we know, no land border guards completed the [US military] provided training from 2015 to 2023 for Saudi border guards. This training focused on maritime security and coastguard operations.”
“Since learning of these allegations, the United States has repeatedly raised this issue in international fora, including publicly at the UN security council in January 2023, and has continued to directly engage senior [Saudi Arabian] officials to urge Saudi Arabia conduct a thorough and transparent investigation into these allegations,” a state department spokesperson said.
On the issue of whether other ministry of interior forces deployed to the border may have received US training the spokesperson added: “There are limits to our information as to what is happening on the Saudi-Yemeni border, including which Saudi forces are operating there.
“That’s why we have pressed Saudi Arabia to thoroughly and transparently investigate these allegations.”
US officials said that programme that provided assistance to the Saudi border force ended in July this year for reasons unrelated to allegations of gross human rights violations.
Complicating the issue of identifying which Saudi units may have been involved in the alleged killings in the Yemen border area is the fact that a number of different units have been deployed there in security roles, many of them under the umbrella of the ministry of the interior.
That includes at least one new regiment assigned to border security, operating under Ministry of Interior command, as well as forces drawn from local tribes and contractors reportedly employed from southern Yemen.
The issue of migrant deaths on the Yemen border came to widespread attention earlier this month following a detailed investigation by Human Rights Watch (HRW), which interviewed dozens of Ethiopians who said they were attacked by Saudi border guards while they tried to cross into Saudi Arabia from Yemen.
Using satellite imaging, photographs of deaths from more than 20 incidents, witness testimony by survivors and forensic experts’ examination of survivors’ wounds, HRW has built up a compelling and horrific picture of an escalating campaign of extreme violence aimed at people trying to cross into Saudi.
Witness testimony describes mass killings, with women and children dying in shelling, and dead people and body parts spread along trails.
“I saw people killed in a way I have never imagined,” Hamdiya, a 14-year-old girl who crossed the border in a group of 60 in February, told researchers. “I saw 30 killed people on the spot.”
HRW’s lead researcher on the report, Nadia Hardman, described her findings as “obscene”.
“I cover violence at borders, but I have never come across something of this nature, the use of explosive weapons including against women and children,” Hardman said.
