While Sudanese await asylum, some find refuge on a kibbutz in Israel
June 14, 2007 (KIBBUTZ YAD HANNAH, Israel) — Five years after he fled his razed Darfur village, and after jail spells in three countries, Ibrahim has found refuge in an unlikely place: a kibbutz in Israel.
The 24-year-old Muslim is one of about 440 Sudanese refugees working in Israeli hotels and on farms while the government seeks to place them in a third country.
Most have fled southern Sudan, where a 22-year conflict left 2.5 million people dead. Others, like Ibrahim, are from Darfur, where a rebellion has cost more than 200,000 civilian lives and made 2.5 million homeless.
Ibrahim, 24, paused while weeding an avocado orchard on this kibbutz, or communal farm, in northern Israel and told his story. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees barred publication of his surname to protect his relatives in Darfur.
He said he fled five years ago to Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, where the government imprisoned him for allegedly conspiring against it. After his release, he bribed his way into neighboring Egypt, and was arrested in Cairo. Once free again, he fled eastward with five others who paid a bedouin to smuggle them into Israel. They feared police would shoot them.
“Then, thank God, we entered Israel and they welcomed us,” he said.
At least temporarily. Israel has accepted refugees for decades, but the Sudanese pose a problem. Israeli law denies asylum to anyone from an “enemy” state, such as Sudan, which doesn’t have diplomatic ties with Israel, and imprisons them until a third country gives them asylum.
Picked up by border guards, Ibrahim found himself back in jail.
Between 1999 and 2005, about 55 Sudanese from Israel were resettled, mostly in Europe, according to the UNHCR. But resettling them gets harder as their numbers grow. Israel now has 550 Sudanese, twice as many as a year ago, the U.N. agency says. More than 100 are still in prison.
Their increasing number has resulted in longer prison stays – and condemnation from inside Israel, where many still remember the Jews who perished in the Holocaust because no country would give them refuge.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said Sudan is known to have an al-Qaida presence. But refugees who are shown to pose no security risk may work in Israel while awaiting asylum elsewhere, Regev said.
After a year in Israeli prisons, Ibrahim was moved in March to Yad Hannah, a kibbutz of 300 people which has taken in 36 Sudanese. They earn about $37 (€28) a day for farm work and shop and cook for themselves, but are still considered prisoners and cannot leave without written permission.
Ibrahim said he feels isolated, because he speaks only Arabic and can’t communicate with his kibbutz employers. But he does feel safe.
“Israel is nice,” he said. “No one will hit you in the street or yell at you. I had to come all this way before I could find someone to treat me this way.”
Kobi Danzon, who manages Yad Hannah’s Sudanese, said the newcomers spent their first paychecks on cell phones to talk to Sudanese friends in Israel and overseas.
Over the years, the Palestinian uprising has deprived Israel of a source of cheap Arab labor, and migrants from Third World countries have flocked here to replace them. But Danzon said the Sudanese on his kibbutz were not regarded as replacements for Arab workers. He said the kibbutz still employs five Palestinians.
Some Israelis fear news of the work arrangement could encourage more Sudanese to enter Israel.
Michael Bavly of the UNHCR says the numbers already are increasing, with an estimated 100 new arrivals last month. “I assume this is because they heard that they are not being arrested, that they are finding places to work and to stay,” he said.
The Foreign Ministry’s Regev emphasized the work program is temporary.
“Israel is willing to play her part in a multilateral solution,” he said. “But it cannot be the solution to the Sudanese refugee problem.”
Siegal Rozen of the Hotline for Migrant Workers, which pairs the Sudanese with employers, said that by claiming they “are dangerous and may be al-Qaida,” Israel may be discouraging other countries from giving them asylum.
Ibrahim said he’ll stay go wherever he can find a permanent home, including Israel.
“All you can hope for is stability,” he said. “That you’ll have opportunities, that you’ll be able to work well and that no one will bother you or attack you. That’s all I hope for.”
(AP)