Throwing refugees to the sharks
If the article below from Reuters is accurate, it seems that the lives of 27 African refugees are in immediate danger and a much larger number in longer term danger because of Israel’s “hot return” policy.
The Israeli army had been carrying out the deportations in secret but some individual soldiers were dismayed by the expulsions and disclosed what was going on to Israeli refugee rights groups.
Ninety one African refugees were deported in “hot returns” between August 23-29, according to figures offered by the government during a supreme court hearing today.
The article does not mention that 48 refugees deported by Israel in a “hot return” to Egypt on Aug. 19, 2007 are still unaccounted for, according to the New York based Human Rights Watch.
Israel deports African migrants to Egypt in crackdown
CAIRO (Reuters) – Israel has forcibly returned to Egypt dozens of African migrants who had slipped into the Jewish state, and rights activists say they fear some are refugees who risk torture if Egypt sends them home as expected.
Egyptian security sources said Israel had returned 48 migrants of Eritrean, Sudanese and Senegalese nationality to Egypt this month, and that Cairo planned to deport them all.
The Israeli returns come as Egypt is under scrutiny by rights groups over its deportations of up to 1,200 Eritrean asylum seekers in June. The United Nations objected to the deportations, saying the Eritreans could face torture at home.
“It’s clearly a flagrant violation of international law,” Hossam Bahgat, head of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, said of the Israeli move.
He said the returns meant the migrants were now certain to be deported by Egypt “to countries where they face a serious threat of detention, torture and even the death penalty”.
An Israeli army spokesman confirmed that the army had handed “an undisclosed number of African refugees” to Egypt and said Israel planned to deport 27 more migrants caught on Sunday.
“They have not been returned to Egypt yet but will be after the army coordinates their return with Egyptian authorities,” the spokesman said. He did not give the nationalities.
Activists say Eritreans had surpassed Sudanese as the largest group of African migrants in Israel. Nearly all arrive via Egypt and include Pentecostal Christians fleeing religious persecution and others trying to avoid military service.
Many African migrants are not keen to stay in Egypt, where they face racism and economic marginalisation, activists say.
ERITREANS AT RISK
Egypt for years tolerated tens of thousands of African migrants on its territory, but its attitude soured in recent months after it came under pressure to halt a rising flow of Africans across the sensitive Sinai border with Israel.
Egypt cracked down hard in June, and its deportations of probable refugees were its largest in decades. Egyptian police have also shot dead at least 20 African migrants at the border this year, most of them Eritrean, Ivorian or Sudanese.
Activists said Eritreans returned by Israel were particularly at risk, citing an Amnesty International report that 740 of the Eritreans sent by Egypt to Eritrea in June were then held without charge and sent to military camps and prisons.
London-based Amnesty said it was “seriously concerned” over the well-being of those detainees and added that they were at grave risk of torture.
Egypt’s Foreign Ministry has criticised the “Western wail” over the migrants and says Cairo was simply trying to balance its security needs with respect for international obligations.
Anat Ben Dor, head of the refugee rights clinic at Israel’s Tel Aviv University, said she had filed a request in court for an injunction to stop Israel from deporting more migrants.
“I would say that given what’s been going on in Egypt recently, Eritreans should be treated as people at risk, and probably Sudanese as well,” she said.
A spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency said UNHCR was aware of reports of deportations of migrants from Israel, but had no official confirmation of the returns.
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This article didn’t mention how Egypt shoots and kills the refugees who enter Egypt, yet Bahgat (from Egypt) has the audacity to criticize Israel and not his own country.
Israel is in a complicated position, because the refugees fleeing to Israel pose a serious national security threat, in some cases. As for others –– Israel treats its foreign workers and refugees quite well, compared to even countries such as Canada, where I am from.
Please stop posting stories that treat Israel with a double standard. Please also understand that not everything you read in the newspapers –– even if Reuters or AP –– is true. People who work for large newspapers in foreign countries are often far detached from the reality of what’s happening there. Local newspapers are usually much more telling.
Read this story about Israel is treating its refugees:
http://greenprophet.com/2008/09/01/2207/fugee-fridays-refugees/
– Karin Kloosterman
http://www.greenprophet.com
Ben is a journalist and has been following this story closely for at least a year. I see nothing wrong with this article unless it is factually proven otherwise – and no other news source has officially done that. So far the criticism comes from people who simply do not wish to see Israel criticized in any form.
It doesn’t seem that way, and I’m using Israeli sources:
- Protest: Israel abusing refugees
- Sudanese refugees sue Israel over abuse by security forces
FYI, deporting refugees to a country where they obviously DO get killed, is just as bad as actually killing them! Hence the title of this post. What Egypt is doing is deplorable, but two wrongs doesn’t make a right – Israel should stop this process immediately.
Green Prophet,
I wonder where you have your eyes – you live in Israel? For how long? Last year there was a BIG story around a group of refugees from Darfur that Israel wanted to turn back to Egypt. Israeli human rights movements and activsts have mobilized and invested a lot of effort to make them stay, knowing fairly well what awaits these refugies back in Egypt (or further on). We all were appalled by the governments cruelty – turning back people facing genocide!! And this in Israel!!
What Ben writes is not a single incident – it’s something known and regular. The army seeks to turn back every African refugee who crosses the border. I guess they send them back and then turn aroung, stuff their ears and do not look, as to be able to sleep at night as they’ve “seen nothing wrong”.
What Israel is doing is a huge humanitarian SCANDAL, and I see no excuse for it.
As for immigrant workers, they’re exploited and treated like slaves. Employers confiscate their passports, pay them whatever they decide to pay (or not), sometime the workers are forced to hunt rabbits or chicken in order to eat. They are parked into caravans or basements without facilities – like 12 in a room that would have enough space for 3, they’re held prisoners in camps with barbed wires around their caravans and expelled whenever the employer has no more use for them.
Even the more “well off” Philippine company maids for old people (a very popular trend in Israel) who have certain “rights” are often exploited and have no choice, no legal protection.
Recently I saw a documentary about such a Philippine “maid” who committed the “crime” to have a baby while in Israel!! Even though the employer of the Philippine father of the baby was ready to give shelter to the whole little family, the woman’s employer didn’t agree and she had no other choice than to send her 3 month old girl to relatives in the Philippines – alone!!