Saudi Arabia Executes Five Ethiopians for Smuggling Hashish

Saudi authorities executed five Ethiopian nationals for drug-smuggling on Thursday, the interior ministry said, the third such announcement in recent months.

The five had been convicted of “participating in smuggling hashish into the kingdom”, the ministry said in a statement published by the official Saudi Press Agency.

They were put to death in Asir, a southern province on the Red Sea coast, bringing Saudi Arabia’s figure for executions this year to 205.

A record 356 were put to death last year.

Five Ethiopians were executed in a single day in June and another five in one day in July. Thirty-two Ethiopians have been executed this year, the biggest foreign group.

Human Rights Watch warned in July that at least 79 Ethiopians face an imminent risk of execution on similar charges.

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.

AFP