For the latest victims of slaughter and genocide who have made their way to Israel– the besieged people of Darfur, the survivors of Congo’s seemingly endless civil war and the innocents caught up in Africa’s other bitter conflicts – the government has failed to live up to both Jewish values and international law. Regrettably, most of these tragic victims of conflict are detained in Israeli prisons, deported back to life-threatening danger, or living in a shadow economy without rights or benefits.
The New Israel Fund is supporting a coalition of NIF grantees forcefully advocating for changes in Israel’s refugee and immigration policy while providing emergency humanitarian assistance and medical care to African refugees now held in detention camps on the Israeli border. An immediate goal is to demand the establishment of a temporary absorption center to handle the influx of desperate refugees who have entered Israel and who are seeking official refugee status. Returning these individuals to Egypt or deporting them elsewhere without adequate safeguards is both cruel and unlawful and must be stopped.
To learn more go to: www.nif.org/africa.