With Reprieve’s help, the Guardian interviewed multiple families of Egyptian migrants on death row. The resulting article sheds light on a horrifying ongoing execution crisis, targeting vulnerable migrants. Saudi Arabia executed 345 people last year, a record in the modern era, and is on pace to surpass this total in 2025.
Since the start of 2024, at least 264 foreign nationals have been executed for drug crimes in Saudi Arabia, according to Reprieve’s monitoring. The Guardian’s piece makes for distressing reading, but is an important record of these appalling human rights abuses. Most of the Egyptians executed this year in Saudi Arabia were tortured into making false confessions. Throughout this year, they have been taken from their shared cell, one by one, to be killed. Their families were not warned in advance that they would be executed. Their bodies were not returned. Read the full story here.