Israel began warning thousands of African migrants on Sunday
that they must leave by the end of March, officials said, under a plan
that could see them jailed if they refuse.
On January 3, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the
implementation of a plan to deport about 38,000 migrants who had entered
the country illegally, mainly Eritreans and Sudanese.
The controversial plan gives them until the end of next month to leave voluntarily or face jail and eventual expulsion.
Immigration
authority spokeswoman Sabine Haddad told AFP that officials began
issuing migrants letters on Sunday advising them that they had 60 days
in which to leave the country voluntarily.
For now, the notices are being given only to men without families, officials said.
Israeli
newspaper Haaretz said “anyone recognised as a victim of slavery or
human trafficking, and those who had requested asylum by the end of 2017
but haven’t gotten a response” would also be exempt for now.
It added that this left the number subject to near-term deportation at “between 15,000 and 20,000 people”.
The authority is offering those who agree to leave a grant of $3,500, a flight ticket and help with obtaining travel documents.
Should
they not leave by the deadline, the grant would be reduced and
“enforcement measures” would be taken against them and anyone employing
them, the authority says.
Israel refers to the tens of thousands
of African migrants who entered the country illegally from neighbouring
Egypt as “infiltrators”.
Israeli officials tacitly recognise that
it is too dangerous to return Sudanese and Eritreans to their troubled
homelands, but local media say the notices do not specify where
departing migrants would be sent.
Aid workers and media have named
Uganda and Rwanda, although both countries deny being a destination
for migrants being expelled involuntarily.
Public opposition to
the plan has been slow to build, but some Israeli airline pilots have
reportedly said they will not fly forced deportees.
Academics have
published a petition and Israeli Holocaust survivors wrote an open
letter to Netanyahu last month pleading with him to reconsider.
The UN refugee agency has called on Israel to scrap the plan, calling it incoherent and unsafe.
A
2016 UN commission of inquiry into Eritrea’s regime found “widespread
and systematic” crimes against humanity, and said an estimated 5,000
people flee the country each month.
The International Criminal
Court has indicted Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges of war
crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide linked to his regime’s
counter-insurgency tactics in the Darfur conflict.
AFP
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