Israel to deport Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers to third countries

Authorities will give people 30 days to leave; those who refuse will face a hearing to determine their indefinite imprisonment. 

Israel will begin deporting asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan to unnamed third countries in Africa even if against their will, the immigration authority announced on Tuesday.

The assumption is that the third countries are Rwanda and Uganda, although Israel has not revealed details.

According to the interior minister, Gilad Erdan, the move will “encourage infiltrators to leave the borders of the state of Israel in an honourable and safe way, and serve as an effective tool for fulfilling our obligations towards Israeli citizens and restoring the fabric of life to the residents of south Tel Aviv”.

Until now, the state exerted pressure and provided a one-off monetary incentive for asylum seekers to leave voluntarily, but only if they signed written consent. Now the state will give them 30 days

More Than 200 Migrants Feared Dead After Boats Sink in Mediterranean

By VICE News
February 11, 2015 | 1:16 pm
More than 200 migrants are missing in the Mediterranean sea after the motorboats they were traveling in sank, the UN refugee agency says.
Nine people were saved after four days at sea, but a further 203 were "swallowed up," Carlotta Sami, the UNHCR spokeswoman in Italy, said on Twitter.
She called the incident a "horrible and enormous tragedy."
The two boats departed from the Libyan coast on Saturday, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Lauren Jolles, UNHCR officer for Southern Europe, criticised Operation Triton — Europe's Mediterranean border patrol — for lacking a "core mandate" of saving human lives.
"We are shocked by the news of the death of another 203 migrants and refugees," she said in a statement.
She added: "The Operation Triton does not have as its core mandate of saving human lives and therefore can not be the answer of which is urgently needed."
Triton was brought into replace Operation Mare Nostrum, the Italian government's program of maritime patrols, which ended last year to warnings from refugee experts that the death toll could soar. The EU operation, run by the bloc's border agency Frontex, covers a much reduced search area and is mandated with border surveillance rather than search and rescue.
Nils Muiznieks, human rights commissioner of the Council of Europe, also denounced Triton's inadequacy, saying the loss of life could have been avoided.
The news comes just days after 29 migrants died after their inflatable raft capsized near the Italian island of Lampedusa. 22 of those died from hypothermia after being picked up by a rescue vessel.
More than 165,000 undocumented migrants tried to cross the Mediterranean to Europe in the first nine months of 2014, accroding to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, compared with 60,000 for the whole of 2013. Almost half of the 2014 migrants were Syrians and Eritreans.
At least 3,000 died or went missing at sea in 2014, according to UNCHR estimates, compared to over 600 in 2013.
Main image: Migrants are picked up by an Italian navy patrol in December. Image via the Italian navy.

C'est ENCORE en Lampedusa! Plus de 20 migrants morts de froid.

Des gardes-côtes italiens ont retrouvé en mer Méditerranée plus de vingt migrants morts de froid, lors du sauvetage d'une embarcation sur laquelle se trouvaient plus d'une centaine de personnes.

Plus de vingt migrants sont morts de froid sur une embarcation qui a été secourue dans la nuit de dimanche à lundi par des gardes-côtes italiens, a annoncé, lundi 9 février, une source médicale à l'AFP. Selon les médias italiens, le total des morts pourrait atteindre 25 à 27 personnes.

"Il y a beaucoup de morts, certainement plus de vingt", a déclaré un médecin du centre des urgences de l'île italienne de Lampedusa, où ont été transférés lundi après-midi une centaine de survivants, dont certains hospitalisés pour hypothermie. "Nous avons dans le centre six jeunes souffrant d'une forte hypothermie et on tente d'organiser leur transport par hélicoptère" vers des hôpitaux mieux équipés, a ajouté le médecin.

L'alerte avait été donnée dimanche après-midi par les migrants à l'aide d'un téléphone satellitaire. Le centre opérationnel des gardes-côtes a dépêché sur place deux navires marchands qui se trouvaient dans la zone, ainsi que deux vedettes parties de Lampedusa, qui ont secouru les migrants dimanche vers 21 h GMT.

Source: France24 Avec AFP

Khaled Idris Bahray, The 20-year-old Eritrean Refugee, was allegedly killed by Racists in Germany

Killing of Eritrean refugee in Dresden exposes racial tensions in Germany

RIP, the late Khaled Idris Bahray 1995-2015

Anti-immigration sentiment highlighted after 25,000 rally in support of far-right Pegida movement on night of murder. t was 8pm on Monday when Khaled Idris Bahray told his seven flatmates he was popping out to buy some cigarettes from the Netto supermarket about 100 metres away from his flat in a prefab high-rise in the south of Dresden.
The 20-year-old Eritrean said he wouldn’t be long. But a few hours later he still hadn’t returned. “We assumed he’d gone to stay with some other friends nearby,” said his flatmate, Abdulrezak Suleman. “So we weren’t really worried.”
But around 7.40 the following morning, other residents in the six-storey building found his body slumped in the inner courtyard of the housing estate.
According to his flatmates, in reports that the police will not confirm, he was covered in blood, with at least one deep cut visible on his body. Rigor mortis had already set in. “He was lying on his back, and had blood coming out of his nose and mouth, with drops of blood leading towards the door as if he’d tried to get in, but not made it, and drops on the grass,” said Abdulatif, 23, a fellow Eritrean who lives nearby but had spent that night in Bahray’s flat.
Hmm not surprisingly, Police say No Foul Play!
The police had first said there seemed to be no suspicious circumstances surrounding the young Muslim’s death, saying in their initial statement that on first appearance “there are no indications of foul play”. But just hours later they confirmed the results of the postmortem showed that Bahray had been unlawfully killed in what appears to have been a vicious knife attack.
“We now have evidence to confirm that a stab from a knife was the cause of his injuries,” said Dieter Kroll, president of Dresden police. “We can exclude the possibility that this was an accident. It is murder.”
Dresden police have launched a murder investigation in the east German city that has been making headlines recently for its anti-immigrant rallies, which, on the night of Bahray’s death, attracted a record number of 25,000 supporters. Tensions in the city have been high in the 12 weeks since the rallies began, with a reported increase in racist attacks.
I want to earn some money and send to Mom, Bahray

Nearly 3,500 Migrants reportedly died in 2014 alone while crossing the Mediterranean: UNHCR

GENEVA (UNHCR) – The UN refugee agency on Wednesday warned that the international community was losing its focus on saving lives amid confusion among coastal nations and regional blocs over how to respond to the growing number of people making risky sea journeys in search of asylum or migration.

Group  risking their lives to reach Europe from North Africa

With preparations under way for the opening today in Geneva of UNHCR's 2014 High Commissioner's Dialogue – an informal policy discussion forum whose focus this year is "Protection at Sea" – UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said some governments were increasingly seeing keeping foreigners out as being a higher priority than upholding asylum.

"This is a mistake, and precisely the wrong reaction for an era in which record numbers of people are fleeing wars," Guterres said. "Security and immigration management are concerns for any country, but policies must be designed in a way that human lives do not end up becoming collateral damage."

The clandestine nature of these sea crossings makes reliable comparisons with previous years difficult, but available data points to 2014 being a record high. According to estimates from coastal authorities and information from confirmed interdictions and other monitoring, at least 348,000 people have risked such journeys worldwide since the start of January. Historically, a principal driver has been migration, but this year the number of asylum-seekers involved has grown.

Europe, facing conflicts to its south (Libya), east (Ukraine) and south-east (Syria/Iraq) is seeing the largest number of sea arrivals. Although not all are people needing asylum, more than 207,000 people have crossed the Mediterranean since the start of January – almost three times the previous known high of about 70,000 in 2011, when the Libyan civil war was in full swing. For the first time, people from refugee-producing countries (mainly Syria and Eritrea) have in 2014 become a major component in this tragic flow, accounting for almost 50 per cent of the total.

In addition to the Mediterranean, there are at least three other major sea routes in use today both by migrants and people fleeing conflict or persecution. In the Horn of Africa region 82,680 people crossed the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea in the first 11 months of this year en route mainly from Ethiopia and Somalia to Yemen or onwards to Saudi Arabia and the countries of the Persian Gulf.

In Southeast Asia, an estimated 54,000 people have undertaken sea crossings so far in 2014, most of them departing from Bangladesh or Myanmar and heading to Thailand, Malaysia or Indonesia. In the Caribbean, at least 4,775 people are known to have taken to boats in the first 11 months, hoping to flee poverty or in search of asylum.

And many die or fall victim to international organized crime in the process of making these journeys. Worldwide, UNHCR has received information of 4,272 reported deaths this year. This includes 3,419 on the Mediterranean – making it the deadliest route of all. In Southeast Asia, an estimated 540 people have died in their attempts to cross the Bay of Bengal.

In the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, at least 242 lives had been lost by December 8, while in the Caribbean the reported number of dead or missing as of the start of December was 71. People smuggling networks are meanwhile flourishing, operating with impunity in areas of instability or conflict, and profiting from human desperation.

Guterres said that by focusing on isolated elements to a problem that by its nature is multi-layered and transnational – often involving routes that stretch across multiple borders and over thousands of kilometres – governments were finding themselves unable to either stem the flow or stop people dying along the journey.

"You can't stop a person who is fleeing for their life by deterrence, without escalating the dangers even more," said Guterres. "The real root causes have to be addressed, and this means looking at why people are fleeing, what prevents them from seeking asylum by safer means, and what can be done to crack down on the criminal networks that prosper from this, while at the same time protecting their victims. It also means having proper systems to deal with arrivals and distinguish real refugees from those who are not."

This year's High Commissioner's Dialogue gathers representatives of governments, non-governmental organisations, coast guard and, academics as well as representatives from partner international organisations. It is being held in Geneva's Palais des Nations over today and Thursday.

Source: UNHCR

We have no asylum-seekers in Ethiopia: Eritrea's U.N. Ambassador

Unaccompanied Eritrean refugee children in Ethiopia

Eritrea’s top diplomat to the United Nations says the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has committed a “conceptual mistake” in a report, which stated that in the past 37 days more than 6,000 Eritreans had claimed asylum in neighboring Ethiopia.

The U.N. refugee agency said Eritrea’s renewed conscription drive was to blame for the sharp increase in the number of youths fleeing the country.
But Eritrea's U.N. ambassador, Girma Asmerom, dismissed the report as a calculated effort to undermine the government by creating disaffection among its population. He said Eritrean citizens migrate just like other nationals, which he said is a global phenomenon.
“The U.N. has to do its bit of homework, because there are no asylum-seekers in Ethiopia,” said Asmerom. “We do not understand why they are

Nearly 40,000 Eritreans risked their lives to reach Europe by boat only this year: UNHCR

GENEVA, November 14 (UNHCR) – The UN refugee agency on Friday said the number of asylum-seekers in Europe from Eritrea over the first 10 months of this year has risen threefold compared to the same period in 2013. In Ethiopia and Sudan, neighboring Eritrea, the number of Eritrean refugees has also increased sharply.

"So far this year, nearly 37,000 Eritreans have sought refuge in Europe, compared to almost 13,000 during the same period last year. Most asylum requests have been lodged in Sweden, Germany and Switzerland, with the vast majority of the Eritreans having arrived by boat across the Mediterranean," UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards told journalists in Geneva.

"Our office in Italy reports that 22 per cent of the people arriving by boat are Eritrean, a total of nearly 34,000 people this year. This makes Eritreans the second

Almost 40,000 Migrants Lost their Lives Crossing Borders/Seas Since 2000: IOM

Mediterranean Sea alone did cost over 22,000 migrants' lives since 2000

It sounds like almost 4 thousand faceless and nameless fellow human-beings had lost their lives unnecessarily every year since 2000 while trying to escape - persecution, killing, or poverty. They were somebody's sisters brothers daughters or sons and now they are just statistics. Unfortunately, thanks to the the rise of anti-migrant right wing parties all over the industrialized world, the death toll of migrants seems to rise even more in the coming years. Every country which tightens its borders and does everything to prevent immigrants from entering its "sovereign land", is a complicit to this human tragedy unfolding everyday from Australia, to the US; from South Africa to Italy; from Saudi-Arabia to Libya.  

Geneva - IOM today (29/9/2014) released “Fatal Journeys: Tracking Lives Lost During Migration,” the world’s most comprehensive tally to date of migrant fatalities across land and sea.

With a count surpassing 40,000 victims since 2000, IOM calls on all the world’s governments to address what it describes as “an epidemic of crime and victimization.”

“Our message is blunt: migrants are dying who need not,” said IOM Director General William Lacy Swing, “It is time to do more than count the number of victims. It is time to

Over 2,500 people have drowned or gone missing trying to reach Europe: UNHCR

Half of those arriving in Europe by boat are refugees from Syria and Eritrea.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres and Special Envoy Angelina Jolie visited the naval rescue headquarters in Malta yesterday, on a weekend in which new boat sinkings were being reported off Egypt and Libya claiming more innocent lives. Ms. Jolie and Mr. Guterres met three survivors of one of the tragedies, who had been rescued by a commercial vessel and brought to Malta by the Maltese authorities.

In the Maltese capital Valletta, Ms. Jolie also visited Syrian refugee families who survived a similar devastating boat tragedy last October. They included a couple from Damascus whose three small children perished during the crossing, and a doctor from Aleppo whose wife and three year-old daughter drowned. Half of those arriving in Europe by boat are

Calais : de l’exaspération des habitants au désespoir des migrants

Le nombre de sans-papiers à Calais, dont la très grande majorité souhaite se rendre en Angleterre, a explosé depuis le début de l'année 2014. Une situation qui pousse à bout les habitants et les migrants. France 24 est allé à leur rencontre.

 Elle avait haussé le ton ce weekend, exaspérée par la passivité britannique face au drame migratoire de Calais. Natacha Bouchart, la maire UMP de la ville du nord de la France, a finalement obtenu une réponse. Elle, qui avait demandé l’aide des Britanniques pour endiguer le flux de migrants illégaux a réussi à faire sortir  son voisin du mutisme. Face à la menace de l’édile français de bloquer le port de la ville, le ministre de l’Immigration anglais a proposé, dimanche 7 septembre, d’offrir à Calais les hautes clôtures d’acier qui avaient sécurisé la venue des chefs d’État lors du sommet de l’Otan à Newport. Soit 21 km de grillage de près de trois mètres de hauteur.

Que la proposition de Londres doive être prise au sérieux ou non, la menace lancée par

'Israel 'coercing Eritreans and Sudanese to leave' Human Rights Watch

The Irony is, this country which was founded at the beginning of 20th century by a few Israeli refugees who fled Europe to escape arbitrary detention, killing and inhumane treatment. Fast forward 2014, their descendants are repeating what happened to their parents, grandparents and great grand parents against fellow helpless and defenseless African refugees whose only crime is having a bit of more melanin on their skin. It just breaks my heart what these fellow human-beings have to go through in the Negev desert with no hope neither future. They have to chose the lesser two evils: being detained indefinitely in the "free country" or go back and face persecution, rape, and of course to be a modern day slave in the military camps in the case of Eritreans. Being a refugee is not a choice; these people have left their families, friends, careers and their home country behind, as if this is not enough, they are being treated like criminals is an open racism at its best.   

ባድመ የኤርትራ መሆኗን ኢትዮጵያውያን መቀበል ይኖርባቸዋል ዴቪድ ሺን በኢትዮጵያ የቀድሞው የአሜሪካ አምባሳደር

ዛሬ ማምሻውን  የጀርመን ድምጽ ባሰራጨው ዘገባ በኢትዮጵያ የቀድሞው የአሜሪካ አምባሳደር ዴቪድ ሺን ኢትዮጵያና ኤርትራ ግንኙነታቸውን ወደ ሰላማዊ መንገድ ለመመለስ ያለምንም ቅድመ ሁኔታ ሊወያዩ ይገባል ሲሉ አሳሰቡ። አምባሳደሩ ፣ ከዚህ ቀደም በዓለም አቀፍ ፍርድ ቤት በተደረገ ድርድር ውጤት ባድመ የኤርትራ መሆኗን እትዮጵያውያን መቀበል ይኖርባቸዋል ብለዋል። ኤርትራ በበኩሏ ፣ አምባሳደሩ እንዳሉት ፤ ኢትዮጵያ በአሰብ ወደብ እንድትጠቀም ልትፈቅድ ይገባል። አምባሳደር ዴቪድ ሺን ፤ አሰብ የኢትዮጵያ ናት የሚለው እሳቤ ጊዜው ያለፈበት ነው ማለታቸውም ተጠቅሷል። እቺ ዛቻ መሰል ማስጠንቀቂያ በርቀት መቆጣጠሪያ የመተላለፏ አንድምታ ምንን ለማመላከት ነው። ለማንኛውም ዘገባውን አምባሳደሩ  አሜሪካን አገር ለሚገኘው የጀርመን ድምጽ ባልደረባ የሰጡት ቃለምልልስ እዚህ ጋር በመጫን ያዳምጡ። ህምምም ነገሩ  የእጅ አዙር ቅኝ አገዛዝ ወይስ ሌላ ድብቅ ዓላማ???

Eritrean & Sudanese Refugees Urged Israel to Respect Geneva Convention 1951

Netanyahu says "no rallies or strikes will help" and stresses that "these are illegal work infiltrators" and not refugees.

Jerusalem Post says that in a rally which started last Sunday and ends today, over fifteen thousand African migrants mainly from Eritrea and Sudan marched in the streets of Tel Aviv outside foreign embassies and the headquarters of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.

Ethiopia ranks again Second Worst Place For Journalists: CPJ

The International Press Freedom Watchdog, CPJ ( Committee to Protect Journalists) in its annual report for this year released today disclosed that 2013 is  the worst for journalist worldwide and Ethiopia is one these places where the safety of journalists is under extreme threat. Our country again named the second journalist jailer in Africa and our competitor, Eritrea is clinching its first place by holding twenty-two journalists behind bars for another reason doing their job - journalism. What makes our country is unique that it is incarcerating not only Ethiopians but two journalists from Eritrea who were captured in Somalia during TPLF's military adventure back in 2006. The whereabouts of these two Eritrean journalists are unknown, according to CPJ's report. In the meantime, our rulers are denying that there are no journalist who are jailed due their profession; an insult to our intelligence. But, I still wonder why is my colleague Shifferaw Insermu, who is the longest serving Ethiopian journalist since April 2004 and whose whereabouts is still unknown to these days,

Israel passes law to detain undocumented African migrants for a year without trial

According to AFP Israel's parliament has approved a law which allows undocumented immigrants from Africa to be detained for up to a year without trial, MPs announced on Tuesday.

Hardliners from Prime Minister Netanyahu's Likud party praised the new legislation, with Interior Minister Gideon Saar saying it would "allow us to keep undocumented immigrants away from our cities."

And MP Miri Regev said Israel should "send them all back to their countries."

But not everyone welcomed the legislation.

"Would you also have placed Nelson Mandela in a closed detention centre?" asked Tamar Zandberg from the left wing Meretz party.

Human rights groups say most African migrants in Israel cannot be deported because their lives would be under threat if they returned home to Sudan and Eritrea.

The government-backed bill amends earlier legislation from 2012 under which undocumented immigrants could be held for three years without trial that was overturned by the Supreme Court in September.

The new bill passed by 30 votes in favour to 15 against during a late-night vote in the 120-member parliament, or Knesset.

It was the latest in a series of measures aimed at cracking down on the numbers of Africans entering the country illegally, which Israel says poses a threat to the state's Jewish character.

Last year, Israel launched a crackdown on what it said were 60,000 undocumented African immigrants, rounding up and deporting 3,920 by the end of the year, and building a hi-tech fence along the border with Egypt.

On November 24, the cabinet approved measures aimed at tackling the question of illegal immigrants, including a crackdown on employers and financial incentives for those agreeing to return to their country of origin.

It has also invested in the construction of a sprawling detention facility for undocumented immigrants arriving in Israel and for immigrants already in the country who "disturb the public order," the premier's office said.

The facility, to be inaugurated on December 12 and run by the Israel Prisons Services, will be open during the day but locked at night, and it will initially house up to 3,300 people, Haaretz newspaper reported.

It said capacity could be expanded to hold up to 11,000.

No Lack of Freedom of Speech in Eritrea : Ambassador Tesfamichael Gerahtu told BBC

Seriously Ambassador? Lie, after lie; it just never stops. Have read (of course, you did) what Reporters without Borders written to your President? To refresh your memory, here are some of the accusations against your president.
Issaias Afeworki, Reporters Without Borders accuses you of committing the following crimes: Ordering, together with then information minister Naizghi Kiflu, the closure of all of Eritrea’s privately-owned press and the arrests of at least 13 journalists, newspaper owners and editors in September 2001. Imposing an unrelenting censorship and terror on the state media – including Eri-TV, radio Dimtsi Hafash (Voice of the Masses) and the Hadas Eritrea – which are the only media allowed in Eritrea. Masterminding and allocating major financial and technical resources for the jamming of the satellite signal of Radio Erena, an independent exile radio station broadcasting to Eritrea from Paris. Responsibility for the surveillance and harassment of the few foreign media correspondents based in Asmara until they all left. You share this responsibility with Ali Abdu, your acting information minister for nearly ten years (who fled the country in November 2012), and his close collaborator, Amanuel Hadgu.
pro-governement daily

Icing on the cake, three of your journalists who fled from the country on the "right track" with abundant freedom of expression to Uganda, were honored on December fourth ( a day before you gave this interview) for their extraordinary courage in continuing to report about government corruption and gender inequalities among others. Mr. Ambassador fool us once, shame on you; but fool us twice shame on us!