Death row inmates desperate to escape execution in Saudi Arabia call the BBC

There was desperation in the voice of the young Ethiopian man when he managed to get through to the BBC from a phone in his prison cell on death row in Saudi Arabia.Habtom, whose name - like the other prisoner featured in this article - has been changed to protect his identity, has been held in a jail in the southern city of Khamis Mushait for more than three years.Above the noise of cellmates shouting behind him, he pleaded for help and sounded angry that his government appeared to be doing little to change his fate."One prisoner cannot comfort another. We have no choice but to cry. We are waiting for our turn, even though we do not know when it will happen," said Habtom.He and some of his fellow inmates had fled war and poverty at home in the hope of finding a better life.But that quest, which took him through Djibouti and Yemen, led to his incarceration - joining a growing number of Ethiopians in Saudi prisons who face the prospect of execution for drug-smuggling offences.Anxious to tell their story, some of the prisoners managed to get hold of the mobile phone number for the BBC's Tigrinya language service. In total we have spoken to seven of the dozens - perhaps as many as 200...