ISRAEL – Eritreans Flee to Detention
TEL AVIV, Nov 30, 2011 (IPS) – Standing across the street from the American embassy in Tel Aviv, more than 200 Eritrean asylum seekers chanted “Yes to justice! Yes to humanity!”, and demanded international intervention to stop torture camps in the Egyptian Sinai. Protests by African asylum seekers in Israel are growing, in the face of increasingly tough policies by the Israelis.
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On Friday morning, Eritrean refugees gathered outside the US embassy in Tel Aviv, in hopes of bringing the American government’s attention to the plight of Eritrean asylum seekers who face torture and rape at the hands of the smugglers who take them to the Israeli border.
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Fund Raising Dinner Nov.2011
Sinai – New Appeal: Free the Refugees in the Town of Taba
Roberto Malini’s Point of View
Rome / Arish – North Sinai Governorate: the horrendous trafficking in human beings and organs continues, despite some smugglers releasing hundreds of Eritrean prisoners and, according to local sources, pulling out of the trafficking in human beings.
The release took place after complaints forwarded by EveryOne Group, the New Generation Foundation for Human Rights, ICER, and other NGOs to the Egyptian authorities and UN and European institutions. Not even the creation of a Bedouin security force, working in contact with the police, the army and the Egyptian intelligence services, or the death of Soliman Abdalah Necklawi, the trafficker known as “The Sultan” in a shoot-out, has stopped some criminals resorting to this horrendous trafficking.
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Roberto Malini’s Point of View
Sinai – New Appeal: Free the Refugees in the Town of Taba
By Roberto Malini
Rome / Arish – North Sinai Governorate: the horrendous trafficking in human beings and organs continues, despite some smugglers releasing hundreds of Eritrean prisoners and, according to local sources, pulling out of the trafficking in human beings.
Israeli jail grappling with rising swell of illegal African immigrants
Almost 3,000 Africans are held at the Saharonim detention center, with hundreds crossing over into Israel every day. By Yaniv Kubovich, Dana Weiler-Polak and Talila
The commander of the Saharonim detention center, which holds foreigners who have fled their homes in Africa, crossed Sinai and entered Israel illegally, notes that “hundreds come every day; others are released or deported. The difficult decisions are not made at my desk,” says Shimon Bibas, commander of the Negev facility. “We simply do the job as best we can.” For the past three years, Bibas has been in charge of one of the most controversial, and least known, facilities in the country. The media has never been allowed inside before, despite repeated requests. At Saharonim everyone who enters the country illegally in the south is detained; some are persecuted asylum-seekers and victims of rape and torture, some are labor migrants trying their luck in Israel. There, fates are decided: Who will be released into Israel, and who will be deported?
(Geneva) – The Egyptian authorities are preparing to deport 118 detained Eritreans to Eritrea, where they risk persecution, Human Rights Watch said today. On October 29, 2011, guards at the al-Shalal prison in Aswan beat the 118 men, including 40 who already have refugee status, to force them to sign papers for their “voluntary” return to Eritrea, according to sources with access to the detainees. Egypt should stop forcing detained Eritreans to sign repatriation forms and allow the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to interview all detained Eritreans to identify refugees among them, Human Rights Watch said. According to UNHCR, it has already registered 40 of the group as refugees in Sudan and Ethiopia. The renewed deportations signal a return to Egypt’s mass deportations of Eritreans in 2008and 2009, Human Rights Watch said.
World Council of Churches in Geneva
Told 3,000 Lives, Mostly Eritreans, Perished in the Sinai
from the http://habeshia.blogspot.com/2011/11/world-council-of-churches-in-geneva.html
Last Updated on Monday, 14 November 2011 21:10 Written by EPDP Information Office Monday, 14 November 2011 20:58
Senior officials of the World Council of Churches (WCC) were informed by the Eritrean priest, Father Mussie Zerai, on Monday 14 November, that in the last three years alone, 10,000 African refugees suffered brutalities by Bedouin human organ traffickers inthe Egyptian Sinai and Sudan and that 3,000 of them perished without trace. The Catholic priest, Father Mussie, is the founder-manager of Agenzia Habeshia which has been engaged in advocacy on behalf of victimized Eritrean and Ethiopian asylum seekers in the Middle East and North Africa.
The Tragedy of Eritrean Refugees
The Trafficking of Men and Human Organs
http://www.avvenire.it/Mondo/Pagine/Eritrei-riserva-di-organi.aspx
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Prisoners in the Sinai
Human Rights Defenders take on the Traffickers
By Roberto Malini Rome /Arish – http://www.tolerance.ca/Article.aspx?ID=123193&L=en
What use are the actions undertaken by human rights defenders? What use are the campaigns, reports and complaints, contacts with the institutions and the media during these operations? Unfortunately, they are sometimes insufficient to prevent humanitarian tragedies taking place, or to save lives. This is not the case, however, for the long campaign that EveryOne Group and other NGOs involved in defending the rights of refugees has carried out to protect sub-Saharan migrants in Northern Sinai.Thanks to an enormous amount of evidence, reports, photographs and videos, human rights defenders have helped to save hundreds of human lives in the North Sinai Governorate. Thanks to the continuous presence of the media and several actions by the United Nations and European Union; thanks to the courageous work of organizations such as New Generation Foundation for Human Rights, ICER, Agenzia Habeshia, the NGO Gandhi, and other small and large organizations, many human beings have now been saved who were once destined for the human organs black market, brutal treatment in the traffickers’ hideouts, inhuman conditions in Egyptian prisons and deportation. This result does not lessen the pain for the many victims in the past, or the suffering of many other young refugees. However, we believe that every life saved is a miracle, an important step towards a human society without violence, discrimination and injustice.