Dare Babalola
Saudi Arabia has broken its own record for executions in a single year, with 340 people put to death so far in 2025, according to an AFP tally.
The latest executions, involving three individuals, were carried out on Monday, sparking renewed concerns over the kingdom’s use of capital punishment.
This toll marks the second consecutive year Saudi Arabia has shattered its own execution record, according to data tracked by rights groups since the 1990s.
The kingdom executed 338 people in 2024, an AFP tally showed.
The interior ministry, citing the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA), announced that the three individuals were executed in the Mecca region after being convicted of murder.
Since the start of 2025, Saudi Arabia has executed 232 people in drug-related cases, constituting the majority of the 340 executions carried out so far, according to AFP’s tally based on ministry and SPA announcements.
Analysts have largely linked the surge in executions to the kingdom’s ongoing “war on drugs” launched in 2023, with many of those first arrested only now being executed following their legal proceedings and convictions.
Saudi Arabia resumed executions for drug offences at the end of 2022, after suspending the use of the death penalty in narcotics cases for around three years.
The Arab world’s largest economy is also one of the biggest markets for captagon, an illicit stimulant that was Syria’s largest export under Bashar al-Assad – according to the United Nations. Assad was ousted last year.
Since launching its war on drugs, the country has increased the presence of police checkpoints on highways and at border crossings, where millions of pills have been confiscated and dozens of traffickers arrested.
Foreigners are largely bearing the brunt of the campaign to date.
Saudi Arabia has long relied on millions of foreign workers to help build its vast infrastructure projects, serve as domestic help for families and staff hotels and other sectors linked to the hospitality industry.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest exporter of oil, has faced consistent criticism over its use of the death penalty, which rights groups have condemned as excessive and in marked contrast to the kingdom’s efforts to present a modern image to the world.
Amnesty International began documenting executions in Saudi Arabia in 1990. Figures dating from before then are largely unclear.
