By Meredith Lee-Clark

Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

 

RAFAH, Egypt – Human Rights Watch has called for Israel and Egypt to halt their practice of deporting African refugees without giving the refugees an opportunity to claim asylum. In a statement dated December 12, Human Rights Watch said that Egypt routinely imprisons and then deports such refugees back to their country of origin, against United Nations refugee policy and the International Convention Against Torture. Human Rights Watch said that Israel’s practice of sending refugees back across the border into Egypt makes Israel complicit with Egypt’s serious human rights violations. Once sent back to their countries, the refugees are certain to face the violence and political situations they originally sought to escape.

 

Human Rights Watch called on the Israeli High Court to put an end to the “hot returns” policy, which authorizes Israeli soldiers along the Israel-Egypt border to return migrants to Egypt within twenty-four hours of crossing the border. The Israeli Defense Forces said that its soldiers fire flares when they see migrants attempting to cross the border, to alert their Egyptian counterparts, even though Egyptian border forces have been known to fire live ammunition at the crossing migrants. As of November 2009, Egyptian forces had killed sixteen African migrants as they attempted to cross into Israel.

 

One of those killed was Iskander Byen, the nineteen-year-old son of Ugalan Byen, who left her home country of Sudan to seek refuge in Israel. When the family got close to the border, Ms. Byen held on to her nine- and five-year-olds, and Iskander held his three-year-old sister, Rosa. As they approached the border, the shooting began. Iskander was shot several times, and a bullet went through Rosa’s leg. The family managed to duck underneath the wire that marks the Egypt-Israel border, but Iskander died en route to the hospital. Even after such a loss, Ms. Byen has no official papers and is in danger of being deported back to Sudan.

 

Hanass Jihahn, a researcher with the Israeli NGO African Relief Development Center, said the issue of refugees is a complicated one in Israel, as it is intrinsically tied up with the Palestinians and the Palestinian right of return.

 

“[T]here is a fear that if we allow them [the African refugees] to come here then perhaps the Palestinians later would say and what about us,” said Jihahn.

 

For more information, please see:

 

NPR – Egyptian Forces Accused of Shooting Asylum Seekers – 14 December 2009

 

Human Rights Watch – Israel: Court Should Halt Forced Returns of Migrants to Egypt – 12 December 2009

 

The National – Refugees Set Their Sights on Israel – 11 December 2009

 

Time – For African Seeking Asylum in Israel, dangers Abound – 11 December 2009

 

Christian Science Monitor – Crossing Into Israel, African Migrants Dodge Egyptian Bullets, Israeli Jail Threat – 14 November 2009