COVID-19 IMPACTS ON IMMIGRATION DETENTION: GLOBAL RESPONSES Migration routes between Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia. © Human Rights Watch Satellite imagery showing the complex of the Jizan Detention Center in Jizan Province, Saudi Arabia. Satellite imagery © 2020 Maxar Technologies Both men and women consistently described poor detention conditions including overcrowding, blocked, inadequate, and overflowing toilets, lack of beds and blankets, lack of medical care including prenatal care for those who were pregnant, and inadequate food and water. They described serious skin problems they said were caused by the unhygienic conditions. Photo images and videos of detainees in al-Dayer and a detention center in Jizan corroborated the accounts. Satellite imagery recorded on 9 August 2020, shows new buildings in the possible detention center of al-Dayer, Jizan Province, Saudi Arabia. Some of the buildings were completed in April 2020. Satellite imagery © 2020 Planet Labs Ethiopian migrants described being taken in small cars and pickup trucks from the Saudi border to a detention facility in al-Dayer. Human Rights Watch has identified through open source technology a prison complex in al-Dayer that matched the descriptions of those interviewed. Human Rights Watch spoke to women and girls who estimated that 300 to 500 of them were held in one room in severely overcrowded conditions after they were separated from the men. Human Rights Watch reviewed video footage sent by a person held in al-Dayer that depicts hundreds of women under a wire mesh roof, ankle deep in filthy water, screaming and crying. Men described sleeping in the same clothes they had worn since they arrived with limited access to water to wash and no medical care. They said that their temperatures were taken when they entered Jizan, but that they have had no other COVID-19-related testing, prevention measures or guidance, or care. Three men said that prison guards beat them for asking for medical attention or complaining about the conditions. Given the lack of COVID-19 testing, Human Rights Watch was not able to verify if any of the Ethiopian migrants in detention contracted the novel coronavirus. Human Rights Watch spoke to six women who had been transferred from Jizan to the Shmeisi Detention Center, near Jeddah, where conditions were described as better but still inadequate and from which some of the female interviewees were returned to Ethiopia. IOM’s office in Ethiopia registers migrants upon arrival in Ethiopia from Saudi Arabia. On June 913 the organization had registered 3,000 Ethiopian returnees from Saudi Arabia since April. Based on migrant accounts gathered since the release of the statement in August, Human Rights Watch estimates that there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Ethiopian migrants pushed out of Yemen in April who remain in deplorable detention conditions in Saudi Arabia. Women and girls said their situation generally improved when they were taken to a detention facility in Jizan. Human Rights Watch analyzed satellite imagery together with witness accounts and found a complex in Jizan city. For men, the conditions deteriorated when they got to Jizan. 13 https://www.iom.int/news/iom-ethiopia-assists-hundreds-returning-covid-19-affected-migrants idcoalition.org | westernsydney.edu.au/hadri 43