Eritrean, Sudanese in Israel at risk if deported to Uganda: Amnesty

April 13, 2018 (KHARTOUM) – The human rights group Amnesty International said Eritrean and Sudanese refugees are at risk once they are deported to Uganda pointing that they do not receive papers, and remain without legal protection.

Since 2013, Rwanda and Uganda have received some 4,000 migrants who had been in Israel which denounced a recent agreement with the UNHCR to keep some of them under pressure of far-right parties.

Amnesty’s release came after statements in Kampala about an Israeli request to take 500 Eritrean and Sudanese after the cancellation of a deal with the Un refugee agency.

“Amnesty International has collected new testimonies from ten Eritrean and Sudanese asylum-seekers deported from Israel to Uganda between February 2017 and January 2018. Seven of them are still in Uganda, while the remaining three have left for other countries in Africa,” said the two-page statement.

The right group further said all of them were escorted at their arrival by “Ugandan individuals” “via back passages, circumventing immigration and customs checks”. following what they “took the Israeli issued travel papers from the asylum seekers, leaving them with no visa or other documents to show regular entry into the country”.

Between 2015 -2018, Israel deported 1,749 Eritrean and Sudanese to Uganda, including 128 people in January-March 2018. The Sudanese are generally from Darfur region.

The statement called on the Israeli government to halt the deportation of asylum-seekers, stressing it violates the principle of non-refoulement in the international law.

“This is the prohibition against transferring anyone to a place where they would be at real risk of persecution and other serious human rights violations, or where they would not be protected against such a transfer later”.

It further said the government of Uganda must immediately cease any co-operation with the Israeli government to carry out illegal deportations.

(ST)