Darfur JEM urges Israel to reverse decision on repatriating refugees

June 12, 2008 (LONDON) – A senior Darfur rebel group official called on the Israeli authorities to halt plans aimed at repatriating refugees to African countries.

“We urge the Israeli government to reconsider its decision. This will only deepen the misery of these refugees” the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) spokesperson Ahmed Hussein told Sudan Tribune.

“Our people [Darfuri] living in African states are living in difficult situation as it is. Sending them to these countries would result in extreme hardship”.

According to press reports Israel is negotiating with four African countries to host Sudanese and other African refugees who sneaked from Egypt.

According to a report published by Haartez yesterday, Israel has offered to pay African states to absorb the thousands of Sudanese refugees from Darfur and other environs who have crossed into Israel recently. The daily attributed the report to the Army Radio.

The JEM official noted that the Darfuri refugees “risked their lives in order to make it inside Israel”.

“Their plight is no different from that of the Jews during the Nazi era in Europe” he said.

The Sudanese refugees have posed an ethical dilemma for Israel, a country created as a haven for Jews in the aftermath of the Holocaust and is now faced with an influx from a region considered to be undergoing genocide by Washington.

Israel considers Sudan, a Muslim-dominated country, an “enemy state” and maintains a policy of not allowing citizens of a state with this classification of residing in the country.

Sudan has no diplomatic relations established with Israel and remains hostile to the Jewish state on the grounds that it is occupying Arab lands.

Last year, the Israeli government has argued in court that because it cannot investigate the background of all the Sudanese, they are assumed to pose a risk. Some officials have warned that if the refugees are granted asylum, it could lead to a flood of Sudanese at Israel’s borders.

“We remind the Israeli government of its obligations under the 1951 Geneva convention relating to the status of refugees and the 1967 protocol, both of which they are signatories of” Hussein said.

According to United Nations figures of 2007, the number of the Sudanese in Israel was estimated at 1,200 refugees from Sudan in Israel; however hundreds sneaked the border since the beginning of this year.

(ST)