Israel deal sends African asylum seekers to West

ISRAEL: Israel has backed away from a controversial plan to deport thousands of African asylum seekers, after striking a deal with the United Nations to have many of them resettled in Western countries, possibly Canada, Germany and Italy.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said 16,250 asylum seekers would be sent to ‘‘developed countries’’, while roughly 20,000 others would be allowed to remain in Israel.

However, there was confusion yesterday, as both German and Italian authorities said they were not aware of the plan.

Most of the asylum seekers in Israel are from Eritrea, an authoritarian east African state where men are often conscripted into the military for life. A smaller number are from Sudan, including the wartorn Darfur region.

The deal with the UN allows Netanyahu to scrap the Israeli government’s original plan to give asylum seekers a choice: stay in Israel and face indefinite imprisonment, or accept US$3500 from the Israeli state and agree to go to a ‘‘third country’’ such as Rwanda or Uganda.

The plan was met with protests by liberal Israelis and was widely condemned by human rights groups. Activists warned that asylum seekers could end up facing torture and extortion in Libya, and possible death by drowning in the Mediterranean Sea. Many of the asylum seekers said they would choose prison rather than go back to Africa, and Israeli officials were privately concerned about the challenges of jailing such a large number.

However, Netanyahu had also been under pressure from sections of the Israeli public to remove the asylum seekers, especially from areas in south Tel Aviv, where they are highly concentrated and have become resented.

Netanyahu, who described the agreement as ‘‘the best possible’’, said he had reached an ‘‘unprecedented common understanding’’ with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees over the issue.

– Telegraph Group