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ASYLUM SEEKERS DETENTION CENTRE IN ISRAEL

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

TAKEN FROM  www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/haaretz-special-report-israeli-jail-grappling-with-rising-swell-of-illegal-african-immigrants-1.397366

 

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?

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Events

Egypt: Don’t Deport Eritreans

Egypt: Don’t Deport Eritreans

(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.

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What is New

ABBA MUSSIE AT THE WWC

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.

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Articles

The Trafficking of Men and Human Organs

The Tragedy of Eritrean Refugees

The Trafficking of Men and Human Organs

http://www.avvenire.it/Mondo/Pagine/Eritrei-riserva-di-organi.aspx

“Don’t even talk about meeting the marauding Bedouins, ” says our contact, the man who worked with them for years from El Arish. A few days ago there was a gun battle with police, and too many media are pay attention to the hostage affair in the Sinai. They are, however, the key to understand the mysteries of Sinai, how many are the abductees, and where did the Eritreans that rest outside the cemetery of El Arish have ended.

According to a chilling launch the Palestinian news agency Ma’an, the action of organ traffickers on the border between Egypt and Israel has already been denounced in September by a refugee from Eritrea to escape his captors Bedouins. The man had denounced the killing of his classmates after he was taken the money and their organs removed. The bodies were thrown into the luggage car of the robbers.

For Complete Google Translation Click Here


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Articles

Prisoners in the Sinai:

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.

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Events

REFUGEES OROMIA-SOMALILAND

Oromia-Somaliland: The Frustrating Situation of Refugees in Somaliland

November 13, 2011 at 3:07 pm · Gadaa.com The following statement is the Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa (HRLHA).

 

HRLHA Appeal and Urgent Action

Your Excellency, Mr. Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud,
President of the Republic of Somaliland.

Dear Honorable President,

First of all, the Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa (HRLHA) would like to express its appreciation to the people of the Republic of Somaliland, and to its government for their hospitality and kindness towards thousands of refugees who have fled their homes to escaped government persecutions in Ethiopia, Eritrea and other neighboring countries, and now living in Somaliland.

However, what has been happening to refugees in Somaliland over the past two and three weeks is contrary to the expectations of the HRLHA and those of international communities.

According to information obtained by HRLHA through its correspondents in Hargeisa, Somaliland, the refugees in the country, most of whom are from Ethiopia, have been subjected to different kinds of harassment and intimidation in a very unsafe situation. According those reports, the refugees have been (and are being) indiscriminately evicted from their rented temporary shelters; and, as a result, more than 700 refugees have been forced to live on the streets. They are temporarily gathered at a place known as the Social Welfare Centre near the UNHCR office in Hargeisa. At this place, only those who could afford to buy, are using tents while those, who could not, are living in open air. Confiscations of properties, documents in particular, take place along with kidnappings at their temporary shelters on the streets.

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Events

Abba Mussie – Egyptian Ambassador

Fr. MUSSIE ZERAI ENGAGES AMBASSADOR TO THE HOLY SEE

ABOUT ERITREAN IN EGYPT

Today, November 10, 2011 a meeting was held at the Egyptian Embassy to the Holy See, between  Aly Hamada MEKHEMAR, AMBASSADOR OF EGYPT TO THE HOLY SEE, Mr. Ahmad Raafat, Embassy’s second secretary, the Hon. Savino Pezzotta, President of the Italian Council for Refugees, and Fr. Mussie Zerai, Chairman of the Habeshia Agency. In the encounter, issues were raised concerning the Eritrean refugees in Egypt, including captivity in the Sinai, the trafficking of organs, and the deportatiion of Eritrean refugees, in violation to  the Geneva Convention of 1951 which protects the right of asylum, of which Egypt is a signatory.

Arrest and indefinite detention of Eritrean asylum seekers and refugees (already recognized by UNHCR office in Sudan and Ethiopia ) due to their illegal entry/exit of the country, was one of the requests presented to the Ambassador.

Even in the understandable right of Egypt to protect its borders and to halt individuals entering/exiting the country illegally, it is a duty of the GoE to guarantee the right of asylum to those individuals  requesting it,  as per Art  31 of  the 1951 Refugee Convention, which asks states not to penalize asylum seekers for their illegal entry. “The Contracting States shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees who, coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened in the sense of article 1, enter or are present in their territory without authorization, provided they present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence.”

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Events

Sudan, Threat of War

Civil War Threatening the Sudans, Warn Bishops

Conflict Worsening at New Border Region

KHARTOUM, Sudan, NOV. 7, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Violence is spreading in Sudan and the newly formed South Sudan, such that a civil war is threatening if the international community doesn’t intervene, according to the countries’ bishops.

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Sudan, Threat of Civil War

Civil War Threatening the Sudans, Warn Bishops

Conflict Worsening at New Border Region

KHARTOUM, Sudan, NOV. 7, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Violence is spreading in Sudan and the newly formed South Sudan, such that a civil war is threatening if the international community doesn’t intervene, according to the countries’ bishops.

The Sudan Catholic Bishops’ Conference, which serves Sudan and the world’s newest country, South Sudan, released a communiqué Oct. 28 titled “The Church God Wants Us to Be.”

As reported by Aid to the Church in Need, the statement speaks of spreading violence in Blue Nile State, South Kordofan and Eastern Equatoria, as well as ongoing violence in Darfur.

The bishops urged an immediate international response, stressing how the conflict in oil-rich Abyei has been “militarized,” and how the Lord’s Resistance Army continues plaguing Western Equatoria and Western Bahr el Ghazal.

“We have constantly warned of the danger of a return to hostilities if the legitimate aspirations of the people of those areas were not met,” the bishops stated.

Enough

Auxiliary Bishop Daniel Adwok Kur of Khartoum told Aid to the Church in Need today, “If you consider the many conflicts in Sudan and South Sudan, they will almost certainly create a situation in which one side or the other will say, ‘Enough is enough. We need to do whatever is necessary to clear away the problem.’

“The government of Sudan may say that if there are [hostile] soldiers on their border, we will need to react; the government of South Sudan may say that it has to hunt down the militia including going into the territory of Sudan. This of course will provoke a reaction from Sudan. One or other of these things is quite likely to happen.”

The bishops’ statement made a plea for the opening of humanitarian corridors to assist some 200,000 displaced people from South Kordofan and Blue Nile State, both on the contentious border between Sudan and South Sudan.

Stating that “corruption is unacceptable,” the bishops call on the governments of both Sudans to be transparent and democratic.

Still united

The statement was issued after a 10-day plenary assembly at which the prelates decided to retain one bishops’ conference despite the creation of South Sudan in July.

“The Church in the two nations will continue to be in solidarity due to our shared history and the very real and practical and human links between us,” the communiqué affirmed. The conference will create two secretariats, one in each capital, to implement policies at the local level.

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Events

IT CANNOT GET ANY WORSE

IS THIS TRUE AND NO ONE IS STOPPING IT? . . . (FROM HTTP:HABESHIA.BLOGSPOT.COM)

Aswan, 31 ottobre 2011 – At the police stations in Aswan, and the military camp of Shelal, about 300 Eritrean refugees are currently being detained, in appalling hygienic conditions and subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment.

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