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Israel begins the deportation of African migrants
Most of the migrants agreed to leave voluntarily in return for handouts of 1,000 euros (US$ 1260) per adult and 300 euros (US$378) per child.
But not all were pleased to be going. Justyna Wanis, being sent to South Sudan with her husband and three young children after five years in Israel, told Israel’s Army Radio in Hebrew:
“I have no family. I have nobody there. But I am going … I don’t know where I’ll go. I don’t know what I’ll do.”
Some of the migrants have accused government right-wingers of racist incitement and inflammatory language.
Some Israelis too, are uncomfortable with the idea of rounding up members of a different racial group and holding them in camps, seeing a betrayal of Jewish values and even distant echoes of the Nazi Holocaust, all in a country built by immigrants and refugees.
Clement T. Dominic, the South Sudanese official overseeing the airlifts, said the migrants would receive “a good package that will allow these people to get reintegrated when they come back to South Sudan”.
He said South Sudan would set up its embassy in Jerusalem, not Tel Aviv, becoming the only country to recognise the Jewish state’s claim on the undivided holy city as its capital.
William Tall, representing the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said Israel had assured his agency that South Sudanese who resisted repatriation would be given a hearing by humanitarian authorities.
Dominic said he expected only a small number of such applications, citing 10 South Sudanese who had taken up studies in Israel, and another six who had married locals.
