Israel scraps plan to send African migrants to West

Israel’s prime minister has cancelled a deal with the UN to relocate African migrants living in the country, a day after reaching the agreement. Benjamin Netanyahu said he had taken the decision after consulting residents of south Tel Aviv, where many of the migrants live. He said he would now consider “all options… to remove the infiltrators”.

The fate of more than 30,000 migrants, who entered the country illegally, has long been a hugely contentious issue.

The UN’s refugee agency, the UNHCR, said Mr Netanyahu’s decision was a “disappointment” and urged the Israeli government to “consider the matter further”.

Under the five-year plan, some 16,250 African migrants who entered the country illegally, many of them seeking asylum, would be resettled in Western nations, which Mr Netanyahu had said included Germany, Italy and Canada.

For each migrant resettled overseas, Israel would give “temporary residence” to a migrant in Israel.

However, the arrangement had drawn opposition from anti-migrant groups and from powerful politicians within his governing coalition.

Canada will still take in a number of the migrants in Israel as it has a separate agreement with the Israeli government. According to Canadian reports, almost 2,000 asylum seekers who have requested either immigration status or asylum in Canada will be processed there.

How controversial is this issue?

A decision in January to offer the migrants a cash lump-sum and a plane ticket to leave Israel voluntarily or otherwise face forced expulsion was controversial in Israel.

Some critics in the country and among the Jewish community abroad – including former ambassadors and Holocaust survivors – said the plan was unethical and a stain on Israel’s international image. The UN refugee agency said it violated local and international laws, and large protests were held in Israel.

Mr Netanyahu said the opposition was “baseless and absurd” and that Israel would resettle “genuine refugees”.

Activists, however, noted that only a handful of Eritreans and Sudanese had been recognized as refugees by Israel since the country took over the processing of applications from the UN in 2009.

BBC

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