Israel Matzav

If they can't send 'Palestinians' they'll send Eritreans?

On Tuesday, I did a post about the influx of illegal African 'refugees' into Israel. The person who sent me the material for that post also sent me a couple of corrections. First, there are not 20,000 illegal 'refugees' in Israel, but 45,000. And they no longer pretend to be from Darfur (which has now become South Sudan). They pretend to be from Eritrea and Sudan - two countries whose refugees are not sent back. And as noted in my previous post, they're not here because they're persecuted in their home countries - they're mostly (95%) here for economic opportunities.

I'd like to supply you with a few more data points.

You will recall that at the beginning of the month, I posted a video about organ trafficking in the Sinai. I'm going to re-embed the video below to save you all the trip to the previous post.

Let's go to the videotape. Warning - this is quite graphic.



When I posted this, I didn't know what happened after the CNN report was shown.

On Wednesday, November 9th, 2011, even if there was no mention of it in the media, another miracle took place. After the story of the prisoners in the Sinai was broadcast by the CNN in a documentary made in collaboration with EveryOne Group and the New Generation Foundation for Human Rights; after the news of the trafficking in human beings and organs was reported in the world’s most important newspapers, along with the killings, the episodes of rape, and the crimes committed by Egyptian border guards, it finally appeared in the Egyptian media (from the Daily News Egypt to the state TV). So much attention was then focused on the North Sinai Governorate that it has made it very difficult for the traffickers to carry out their dirty work. The world's media are all there, at Arish, Gorah and Rafah. They investigate, ask questions, patrol the city in search of the underground containers and groups of sub-Saharan refugees in the hands of the smugglers. The criminals’ names are on a thousand lips: Abu Kahled, Abu Ahmed, Abu Abdellah, the Sawarka family. In the meantime, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Human Beings, the EU Commissioner for Human Rights, the European Committee against Torture and dozens of MPs and MEPs, NGOs and intellectuals have sent letters of protest and reported the crimes to the Egyptian and international authorities. In this climate, many chief-traffickers were afraid of being pursued by the authorities and on Wednesday, November 9th, 2011 decided to release most of the groups of refugees they were holding prisoner.

They were released on the border with Israel. They came from Arish, Gorah, Rafah and other cities of the Sinai, a total of 600 people according to numbers released by the UNHCR, and reported in the Italian newspaper L'Avvenire (http://www.avvenire.it/Mondo/Pagine/ Eritrean-reserves-to-organi.aspx). EveryOne Group is trying to verify the accuracy of these numbers.

Hamdy Al-Azazy, the human rights activist, told Everyone Group that after being freed by the traffickers, at least 100 Eritrean refugees reached the state of Israel. Hundreds of human beings destined for a terrible future, often death, are now free thanks to humanitarian activism and the human rights activists who never gave up, not even in the face of silence and indifference that lasted far too long.

EveryOne Group has now asked the High Commissioner for Refugees to ensure that the refugees are protected and resettled in the EU, without the threat of deportation. There will be no security for them while the possibility of deportation still exists. Although we must not lower our guard, we can be satisfied with the results this new form of activism (which uses the Internet, but also exposes itself on the frontline, running serious risks to save human lives) can achieve in today’s troubled world, a world that is still far from the ideal of peace and social justice.

But none of those refugees is in the European Union. 611 of them are in Israel (link mostly in Hebrew). And according to the website I just linked, they're there through the efforts of an Egyptian in El-Arish, Hamdy Ahmed Al-Azazy, who 'instructs' Muslim refugees how to reach Israel with the help of his assistant and with the guidance of one Ellen Rosser, a California English professor and 'peace activist,' who took part in Code Pink's 'Gaza Freedom March' in January 2010.

By the way, if Hamdy looks familiar, it's because he should. Go back and watch that CNN report again.

Is Israel being forced or encouraged to save African 'refugees' from Egyptian Bedouin as part of a plot to increase our Muslim population? 45,000 people is an awful lot in this country. We have a population of about 7,000,000, so that works out to be equivalent to 1.93 million 'refugees' like that in the US. Do you think that's a lot of people for our government to support? Do you think that's got the makings of a recidivist minority?

What could go wrong?

Labels: Bedouin, Egypt, refugees

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:49 PM