“I have two minutes of phone time left. I don’t know if I will still be alive tomorrow. If we speak again, I will be very grateful to you.” Those were the final words of Dawit Tesfay, a pseudonym used for security reasons, during a conversation with EL PAÍS. The 24-year-old Ethiopian has spent eight months in Khamis Mushait prison awaiting execution by decapitation after being convicted of a drug-related offence.
Tesfay says his trial lasted only two minutes and that he had neither a lawyer nor an interpreter. He also says he was required to sign documents written in Arabic that he could not understand. His account reflects concerns documented by human rights organisations in numerous similar cases involving foreign nationals sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia.
Amnesty International recorded 96 executions in Saudi Arabia between 1 January and 22 June 2026, including 61 for drug-related offences. Of those drug-related executions, 39 involved foreign nationals. Human Rights Watch (HRW), meanwhile, documented that at least 20 Ethiopian citizens had been executed for drug trafficking between January and August 2026, including the three most recent on 31 July. At least another 76 Ethiopians were considered at imminent risk of execution.
Tesfay says there were 68 people sentenced to death in his prison wing when he arrived. Now, he says, 55 remain. The uncertainty over who will be taken next has become a defining feature of life inside the prison.
“They come suddenly, call someone to come out and take them away to be beheaded,” says Adam Berhe, another Ethiopian prisoner who spoke to EL PAÍS over the past two weeks. The 34-year-old, also using a pseudonym, has been awaiting execution for more than three years. “Just last week, eight people were beheaded in this prison. We live in terror,” he says.
Both Berhe and Tesfay were convicted of transporting hashish, a prohibited substance in Saudi Arabia. Berhe acknowledges that he knew what he was carrying but says he accepted the work because he was in desperate circumstances. Tesfay insists that he did not know the contents of the package and says he first heard the word hashish only after his arrest.
Saudi Arabia formally maintains that executions take place after sentences have passed through several stages of judicial review. HRW and Amnesty International, however, say they have identified recurring serious procedural irregularities, including extremely brief hearings, the absence of lawyers and interpreters, and the use of Arabic-language documents that defendants could not understand.
Joey Shea, a senior researcher at HRW, says some defendants appeared at only three hearings lasting a few minutes, sometimes by video conference, without legal representation. Some prisoners who did not speak Arabic were allegedly made to sign documents they could not understand, potentially including confessions. Amnesty International has also documented allegations of torture and other mistreatment, including cases in which defendants told judges they had been coerced into confessing but were nevertheless sentenced to death.
The concentration of Ethiopian nationals among those facing execution is closely linked to migration from Tigray, where many of the prisoners originated. They travelled to Saudi Arabia through Yemen after crossing the Gulf of Aden, having fled the war fought between 2020 and 2022. HRW and Amnesty International say vulnerable migrants who spent months or years in Yemen without work, food or resources were sometimes recruited by drug-trafficking networks and offered work without being told what they were carrying.
Saudi Arabia resumed executions for drug-related offences in 2022 after a de facto suspension and has since sharply increased their use. In 2025, it executed at least 356 people, according to HRW, the highest annual figure recorded in modern records. The previous year, 345 people were executed.
The issue has prompted concern from international and regional bodies. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights expressed “deep concern” on 22 July and called for convictions to be reviewed. A United Nations working group has considered death sentences and executions for drug-related offences in Saudi Arabia incompatible with international law and called for the restoration of a moratorium.
Ethiopia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs says it maintains regular contact with Saudi Arabia and stated on 13 July that 1,971 Ethiopian citizens had benefited from royal pardons, with the government beginning to facilitate their repatriation. EL PAÍS said it contacted the Ethiopian and Saudi foreign ministries and the Saudi Human Rights Commission but received no response.
Inside Khamis Mushait, however, the uncertainty continues. “We are very afraid. Please try to help us as soon as possible,” Berhe said on 9 August in one of his final communications. Tesfay’s message was equally stark: “The only message I want to convey is that you should not lose hope for our lives.” For the men waiting behind the prison walls, hope has become inseparable from the fear that the next call may never come.
