Amnesty International recorded 96 executions in Saudi Arabia between January 1 and June 22, 2026, of which 61 were for drug-related offenses. Of these, 39 were foreign nationals. Meanwhile, between January and August 2026, Human Rights Watch documented that at least 20 Ethiopian citizens had been executed for drug trafficking (the last three on July 31) and that at least another 76 of the same nationality face imminent risk of execution. Every time Tesfay says goodbye after a phone call, neither he nor anyone else knows if he’ll ever be able to get in touch again. The young man also doesn’t know when his turn to die will come. He says there were 68 death row inmates in his wing when he arrived. Today, there are 55 left.