Holding placards reading "We need freedom" and "stop racism!" thousands of African women and children asylum-seekers in Israel marched in Tel Aviv on Wednesday against the Jewish state's immigration policies.
"We are refugees," women chanted, many of them carrying infants or pushing prams along the streets of this coastal city where most of them live.
"We are seeking asylum. We're not criminals," said an Eritrean woman "Our kids have no legal documents so they don't have any basic rights. We have no kind of support for us and the kids ...."
Last week, tens of thousands of Africans held mass demonstrations for four straight days. The UNHCR warned that Israel could be in breach of international law with new legislation that allows for the potentially indefinite detention of asylum-seekers. According to UN figures, there are currently some 53 000 refugees and asylum-seekers in Israel. Most of them entered via the desert border with Egypt, before the Jewish state completed construction of a massive hi-tech barrier there late last year. Some 36 000 come from Eritrea, whose regime repeatedly has been accused of widespread human rights abuses by the international community. Another 14 000 are from conflict-torn Sudan.
Meantime, the UK governent who supported the uprising in Syria will only go so far to help the resulting Syrian refugee crisis. Cameron’s government effectively said “no” to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), when it pleaded to western countries to accept 30,000 most vulnerable Syrians for resettlement.
“I fear it may be domestic immigration considerations that’s influencing them,” Anna Musgrave, an advocacy officer at Refugee Council, UK’s leading organization working with refugees and asylum seekers, said.
So far 18 countries answered the call, including the US, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand and many European countries. But UK was not one of them. Money is no longer enough. We must provide a safe haven to the most vulnerable, according to observers.
“This is abandonment. You cannot just ask people, stay where you are, we’ll just give you charity. What will they do at the borders? Where will they take their children every morning?” Middle East expert Saheed Shahabi told RT.
"We are refugees," women chanted, many of them carrying infants or pushing prams along the streets of this coastal city where most of them live.
"We are seeking asylum. We're not criminals," said an Eritrean woman "Our kids have no legal documents so they don't have any basic rights. We have no kind of support for us and the kids ...."
Last week, tens of thousands of Africans held mass demonstrations for four straight days. The UNHCR warned that Israel could be in breach of international law with new legislation that allows for the potentially indefinite detention of asylum-seekers. According to UN figures, there are currently some 53 000 refugees and asylum-seekers in Israel. Most of them entered via the desert border with Egypt, before the Jewish state completed construction of a massive hi-tech barrier there late last year. Some 36 000 come from Eritrea, whose regime repeatedly has been accused of widespread human rights abuses by the international community. Another 14 000 are from conflict-torn Sudan.
Meantime, the UK governent who supported the uprising in Syria will only go so far to help the resulting Syrian refugee crisis. Cameron’s government effectively said “no” to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), when it pleaded to western countries to accept 30,000 most vulnerable Syrians for resettlement.
“I fear it may be domestic immigration considerations that’s influencing them,” Anna Musgrave, an advocacy officer at Refugee Council, UK’s leading organization working with refugees and asylum seekers, said.
So far 18 countries answered the call, including the US, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand and many European countries. But UK was not one of them. Money is no longer enough. We must provide a safe haven to the most vulnerable, according to observers.
“This is abandonment. You cannot just ask people, stay where you are, we’ll just give you charity. What will they do at the borders? Where will they take their children every morning?” Middle East expert Saheed Shahabi told RT.
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