Saudi Arabia has executed two Ethiopian nationals for drug trafficking, the Ministry of the Interior announced Thursday, July 10, which has at least 101 the total number of foreigners executed in the kingdom since the start of the year, according to a count of the France-Presse Agency (AFP). Ethiopians Khalil Qasim Mohammed Omar and Mourad Yaqoub Adam Siyo were executed after being “Recognized by cannabis smuggling”reports a statement from the ministry published by the Saudi news agency SPA.
A total of 189 people have been executed since the beginning of 2025, according to an AFP count, including 88 Saudis. In 2024, the CAP of 100 executions of foreigners had only been crossed by November by the Kingdom, one of the countries in the world where the death penalty is the most applied. According to a previous AFP count, at least 338 people were executed in 2024, against 170 in 2023, much more than the previous known record of 196 in 2022.
The fact of reaching this number before the end of July marks, according to Amnesty International, a “Alarming climbing in executions, including foreign nationals condemned for drug -related crimes”.
Additional obstacles
In a report published on Monday, the human rights NGO specified that “January 2014 to June 2025, Saudi Arabia had executed 1,816 people, according to spa dispatches, about a third of them were for drug -related offenses”. However, recalls Amnesty International, “International law and international standards in human rights do not authorize the death for such crimes”. Still according to Amnesty, “Over this ten -year period, 597 people were executed for drug -related offenses, of which around 75 % were foreigners”.
After a moratorium of about three years, the Saudi authorities resumed the executions for drugs related to drugs at the end of 2022. Kristyan Benedict, deputy director of Amnesty International for the Middle East and North Africa, denounced “A truly terrifying trend, where the death penalty is applied at a frantic pace against foreigners for offenses that should never lead to such a sentence”.
The NGO also recalls that foreigners face additional obstacles to benefit from a fair trial in Saudi Arabia, in particular due to the lack of transparency of the judicial system and their status of non-leaning.
“A worrying increase” of drug -related executions
The reprise organization, located in London, also denounced last week “A worrying increase” Drug -related executions, stating that foreigners represented more than half of the executions identified in 2025, and that 93 % of them were convicted of offenses in connection with narcotics.
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“In Saudi Arabia of Mohammed Ben Salman, you can attend a rave in the desert, but you can also be executed for smoking hashish”said Jeed Basyouni, responsible for projects relating to the death penalty in the Middle East as a resident, referring to the Crown Prince and de facto leader of the country. “The billions spent to promote a more tolerant and inclusive kingdom under the reign of the crown prince mask an authoritarian state where daily executions for drug -related crimes are now the norm”he added.
Human rights activists believe that the maintenance of capital punishment tarnishes the image of the kingdom, engaged in a vast program of reforms called “Vision 2030”. The authorities claim that the death penalty is necessary for the maintenance of public order and that it is only applied when all the remedies have been exhausted.
