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Media reports revealed that Saudi Arabia is following through with executions double the number recorded last year. 

Saudi Arabia executed twice as many people in 2022 as it did the previous year, according to statistics released today by the AFP. International human rights organizations strongly denounce this sharp increase.

A Saudi national and a citizen of Jordan were detained by Saudi Arabia and executed after being found guilty of smuggling illegal amphetamine tablets in Al-Jawf region, according to WAS. 

The number of executions carried out in 2022 increased to 138 as a result of these two executions, according to statistics compiled by Agence France-Presse using official data.

Read next: Saudi Arabia carries out mass execution of 81 people

In 2021, Saudi Arabia carried out 69 death sentences. At the height of the Coronavirus outbreak in Saudi Arabia in 2020, there were 27 executions, and 187 people were put to death in 2019.

The two executions come just one week after Saudi Arabia announced the execution of two death sentences against drug traffickers from Pakistan; this was the nation's first execution involving drugs in almost three years.

In a statement at the time, Amnesty International argued that the recent executions disrespected the statement on drug-related crimes made public by the Saudi Human Rights Commission in January 2021.

Read next: Saudi Arabia beheads young man

In an earlier report, Amnesty International urged Saudi Arabia to halt executions in May. The Kingdom has sentenced two Bahraini men, Jaafar Mohammad Sultan and Sadeq Majeed Thamer, to death.

In January, the Saudi court ratified the death sentence on both the young men who were arrested on May 8, 2015, on King Fahd Causeway. Later, the Saudi authorities charged them with "preparing to blow up the bridge linking to Bahrain," but they refuted these claims and slammed them as politically motivated. 

#SaudiArabia goes on with its unlawful executions; 2 months after the last mass executions that shocked the whole world, Sadiq Majid Thamer and Jaafar Muhammad Sultan now face a death sentence for allegedly smuggling explosives.#Bahrain pic.twitter.com/xcP8jvrpR3

— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) May 22, 2022

After a “grossly unfair” trial, the two men had their sentences handed down in October 2021.

An Amnesty International report, analyzing the use of the death penalty worldwide, exposes Saudi’s 2022 execution tally is nearly double what was recorded in the previous year, 65 executions, which in itself was beyond double the 2020 numbers.

In a related context, that further exposes Saudi Arabia's brutality and human rights violations, the Yemeni Al-Masirah news channel on November 12 revealed footage it said was of a "mass grave containing dozens of African victims killed by Saudi border guards."

The footage shows Saudi border guards filtering out dozens of Ethiopian migrants, believed to have been taken in the moments before they were killed.

Read more: Hundreds of Ethiopians repatriated from Saudi Arabia after painful ordeal