Israeli expulsions to Egypt: 139 missing refugees-and counting

Jerusalem – The UN’s refugee agency has confirmed that ninety one African refugees expelled by the Israeli army to Egypt as part of Israel’s controversial “hot return” policy have gone missing.

A spokeswoman in Cairo for the United Nations High Commission on Refugees said that Egypt has not responded to requests for information about the 91, who were returned shortly after crossing illegally from Sinai into Israel, in at least some cases without any chance to present asylum requests.“We don’t have access to this group, we do not where they are,” the UNHCR spokeswoman said

According to an IDF reserve soldier who participated in a hot return in August, refugees were blindfolded and forced back to Egypt only twenty minutes after they had been shot at by Egyptian police for trying to cross into Israel.

Israel revived the hot returns policy in August for the first time since 48 refugees, most of them Sudanese, disappeared after being forcibly returned a year earlier. At least five of them are known to have been sent back to Sudan, despite what the government said were assurances from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that this would not happen. The punishment for visiting Israel is protracted imprisonment or death, according to Sudanese law..

Andy David, Israeli foreign ministry deputy spokesman said: “Complaints that they are disappearing in Egypt should not be brought to Israel. We can’t be held responsible for what the Egyptians are doing.” He said there was an “understanding” with Egypt that refugees should be well treated, “but it is not Israel’s responsibility to not deport someone back to Egypt because of the chance he will be treated differently.”

“Most of those trying to cross are not from Darfur and are not refugees. They are deported back to where they have come from and this is what every country does,” he said. The New York based Human Rights Watch says Israel’s position contravenes the 1951 International Convention on Refugee Rights, to which it is a signatory. The convention bans expelling refugees to places where their lives and liberty are in danger

Anat Ben-Dor, head of the refugee legal clinic at Tel Aviv University, said in response to the disappearance of the 91 persons “We have been very disappointed with the state’s position that unless UNHCR says otherwise, Egypt is a safe country. We would expect the state to halt the returns in light of this.”

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