African Migrants Abandoned To Death At Saudi Arabia's COVID-19 Management Center

Illustrated (Pixabay / Redleaf_Lodi)

JAKARTA - Saudi Arabia, one of the richest countries on Earth, is imprisoning hundreds of African migrants in inhuman ways in an effort to stop the spread of COVID-19. The Sunday Telegraph revealed this through an investigation published on August 30 yesterday.

Photos sent to newspapers by migrants detained inside the detention center show dozens of thin men lying shirtless in small rooms with barred windows. In the photo, they can be seen lying in a tight line.

Another image shows what looks like a corpse wrapped in a white and purple blanket in the middle of the line. They said it was the body of a migrant who died from the heat of the heat. The reason is, in the isolation center they barely get enough food and water to survive.

Meanwhile, a picture too vulgar to be published shows a young African man hanging from the inner wall window bars. He committed suicide after feeling hopeless, said his friends. It is known that many of them have been detained since April.

Some migrants show scars on their backs. They admitted to being beaten by guards who racially abused them.

"It is terrible inside here. We are treated like animals and beaten every day," Abebe, an Ethiopian who has been held in a detention center for more than four months, told the Telegraph.

"If I see that there is no way out, I will kill myself. The others have," Abe said through an intermediary who could communicate via smuggled phones.

"My only mistake was leaving my country in search of a better life. But they beat us with whips and electric cables as if we were murderers," Abe said.

Sparked activist anger

The incident sparked anger among human rights activists. Especially those who care about the Black Lives Matter movement.

Adam Coogle, for example, deputy director of Human Rights Watch Middle East, reacted strongly after learning this information. "Photos emerging from the detention center of southern Saudi Arabia show authorities there placing African migrants in squalid, overcrowded and inhuman conditions without regard for their safety or dignity," he told the Telegraph.

"The slum detention centers in southern Saudi Arabia are far from standard. For a rich country like Saudi Arabia, there is no reason to keep them in such dire conditions," added Coogle.

It turns out that oil-rich Saudi Arabia has long exploited migrant workers from Africa and Asia. In June 2019, an estimated 6.6 million foreign workers were employed in low wage employment.

Most of them work in construction and domestic work which Saudis don't like to do on their own. The migrants mostly come from across the Red Sea of Africa and South Asia.