New Coalition Promotes Rights of Israel's African Refugees

November 12, 2007

There was a carnival atmosphere in Tel Aviv's Rothschild Boulevard earlier this month as nearly 1,000 people rallied to mark the establishment of the Coalition for Refugees and Asylum Seekers. And while the African refugees were celebrating in the fall sunshine, they bore beneath their smiles chilling stories of slaughter and deprivation.

Supported by an emergency grant from NIF, the newly founded Coalition seeks to find just solutions for the growing number of refugees in Israel, almost all from Africa, and includes members of the NIF family such as Hotline for Migrant Workers, Physicians for Human Rights, ASSAF African Refugees Development Center as well as Amnesty International.

According to Ran Cohen from Physicians for Human Rights, who sits on the management committee of the new coalition, there are nearly 4,000 refugees in Israel.   Of those refugees, nearly 2,000 have arrived in the past 18 months from Sudan, including 500 fleeing the genocide in Darfur. There are also significant number of refugees from the civil wars and unrest in Congo and Eritrea.

"We want a fair and equal asylum process for every asylum seeker," explained Cohen, “and an immediate end to deportations. All refugees should be given basic health, welfare and education services and the 600 refugees in detention should be released."

The Tel Aviv rally was the opening of a campaign to raise public awareness about the plight and needs of Israel's refugees. In recent months, a national consensus has emerged that the Darfur refugees, as victims of genocide, should be allowed to stay in Israel.

Among the refugees at the Tel Aviv rally was Ismayil Halim, 43, who reached Israel four months ago with his wife Alima and three children. The Halims fled Darfur for Egypt four years ago after government-backed militias burned their parents alive in their homes. They trekked to Israel through the Sinai last summer after being continually harassed by the Egyptian authorities.

"We reached Beer Sheva and were about to be arrested," he recalls. "But intervention by Hotline for Migrant Workers allowed us to remain free and local students paid for us to rent an apartment in Tel Aviv." 

The Halims have benefited from a government decision to allow Darfur refugees to legally work in Israel, even though they have no permanent status. Ismayil works as a computer technician in Tel Aviv while Alima has found employment as a cleaner. "We are now able to pay our own rent," he explains, “and support ourselves. I don't understand international laws about political asylum. But for the first time in years I feel secure and I want an arrangement which will guarantee the long-term security of my children until it is safe to return home."