Israel to turn away Darfur refugees
August 19, 2007 (JERUSALEM) — Israel said Sunday it will no longer allow asylum seekers from strife-torn Darfur to stay after sneaking across the border with Egypt.
Israel has been grappling for months with how to deal with a swelling flow of Africans, including some from Darfur, who have been infiltrating in growing numbers through the country’s porous desert border with Egypt. The number of infiltrators has shot up in recent months to as many as 50 a day, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, apparently as word of job opportunities in Israel spread.
The rise has led to concerns in Israel that the country could face a flood of African refugees if it doesn’t take a harsher stand on the asylum-seekers.
Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said a limited number of Darfur refugees would be allowed to remain in Israel. But on Sunday, a government spokesman said all infiltrators would now be turned back.
“The policy of returning back anyone who enters Israel illegally will pertain to everyone, including those from Darfur,” spokesman David Baker said.
Those already in Israel will be allowed to stay, Baker said.
Overnight, Israel returned 48 African infiltrators to Egypt. Egyptian police said the infiltrators included a number from Darfur, and that they would be expelled from Egypt back to Sudan.
Fighting between pro-government militias and rebels in Darfur has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced 2.5 million since February 2003. Most of the displaced people remain in Darfur, but the U.N. estimates 236,000 have fled across the border to neighboring Chad, where they live in camps.
Tens of thousands of others have sought sanctuary in Egypt, which is ill-equipped to provide jobs and social services. About 400 of the Darfurians who reached Egypt have driven and trekked through desert sands to forge the unfenced frontier with Israel, according to advocates for the refugees in Israel.
Israel’s response to the unexpected arrivals has been confused, with threats to expel them clashing with sentiments inspired by the memory of Jews seeking sanctuary from the Nazis and being turned away.
Eytan Schwartz, an advocate for Darfur refugees in Israel, objected to any ban on Darfur refugees. “The state of Israel has to show compassion for refugees after the Jewish people was subject to persecution throughout its history,” he said.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel said in a statement that it is “Israel’s moral and legal obligation to accept any refugees or asylum seekers facing life-threatening danger or infringements on their freedom.”
But Ephraim Zuroff of the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center said the Jewish people could not be expected to right every wrong just because of its past.
“Israel can’t throw open the gates and allow unlimited access for people who are basically economic refugees,” Zuroff said.
The asylum-seekers found sanctuary from mass murder by fleeing to Egypt, he said, and their arrival in Israel “was motivated primarily by the difficult living conditions and bleak economic prospects in that country.”
That the refugees are from Sudan further complicates matters, because Israeli law denies asylum to anyone from an enemy state. Sudan’s Muslim government is hostile to Israel and has no diplomatic ties with the Jewish state.
Though the case of the Darfur refugees is unusual, the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin set a precedent in 1977 when he offered asylum to nearly 400 Vietnamese boat people.
Israel estimates that 2,800 people have entered the country illegally through Egypt’s Sinai desert in recent years. Nearly all are from Africa, including 1,160 from Sudan. Many spent months or years in Egypt before entering Israel.
Israeli volunteers have helped some of the arrivals find employment and temporary housing. Some work as laborers on kibbutzim, Israeli communal farms. Others were incarcerated as enemy nationals, and a few remain in prison.
Israel recently announced that Egypt had agreed to take back many of the refugees and had promised that they would be treated well.
An Israeli government official said Sunday that Egypt had guaranteed that any Darfur refugees sent back from Israel would not be forced to return to Sudan. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release that information to the press.
But Egypt has denied any obligation to take them back, and it was unclear what fate expelled Africans would face once returned to Egypt.
Many Sudanese find life difficult in Egypt, where riot police killed nearly 30 people when clearing a refugee encampment in central Cairo in 2005.
Israel has repeatedly urged Egypt to step up its surveillance of the border to prevent the illegal flow of goods and people. Egypt has indeed stepped up its efforts recently, with almost daily reports of African refugees arrested by authorities before entering Israel.
In July, Egyptian police shot and killed a Sudanese woman who was trying to cross into Israel, the first confirmed death of its kind. And earlier this month, Israeli media reported that Egyptian border guards beat to death two Sudanese men in front of Israeli soldiers.
Egypt neither confirmed nor denied the incident.
(AP)