Israel issues deportation notices to African migrants
Israel has started issuing deportation notices to African asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan.
On Sunday, the first wave of notices were
distributed to men who are in the country without families, the Israeli
daily Haaretz reported.
The 20,000 people who are not held in the
country's open detention facility will be expected to leave within 60
days, or risk being imprisoned indefinitely.
According to Haaretz, the refugees will be asked to either leave for Rwanda, or back to their home countries.
Israeli officials have said the decision to refrain from
forcibly deporting parents, women and children will likely change in the
future.
In December, the Israeli parliament passed a bill authorising the government to force asylum seekers out of the country.
During visits to detention centres, government
representatives provided refugees with a letter that listed Rwanda - and
on a previous occasion, Uganda - to relocate to.
"We would like to inform you that the state of Israel has
signed agreements allowing you to leave Israel for a safe third country
that will absorb you and give you a residency visa that will allow you
to work in that country, and promises not to remove you to your country
of origin," the letter read, according to Haaretz.
Shortly after, Rwanda and Uganda rejected claims of signing a controversial deal to take in African migrants from the country.
Currently, Israel is home to about 40,000 asylum seekers,
according to government figures. That includes 27,500 Eritrean and 7,800
Sudanese asylum seekers, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has reported.
Most asylum seekers in Israel are from Sudan and Eritrea who arrived over the last 10 years from neighbouring Egypt. Most have fled war, torture and other mistreatment.
Between December 2013 and June 2017, about 4,000 Sudanese
and Eritrean asylum seekers were deported under Israel's "voluntary
departure programme" to Rwanda and Uganda, according to UNHCR.
Meanwhile, Holot, a detention centre that houses some of the
asylum seekers in the country's southern Negev desert, is scheduled to
close down in six weeks.
Source: Al Jazeera
No comments
Your comments and Encouragement are welcome