{"id":304,"date":"2011-05-16T05:14:40","date_gmt":"2011-05-16T05:14:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thanassiscambanis.com\/sipa\/?p=304"},"modified":"2011-05-16T05:16:12","modified_gmt":"2011-05-16T05:16:12","slug":"refugees-in-a-refugee-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thanassiscambanis.com\/sipa\/2011\/05\/refugees-in-a-refugee-nation\/","title":{"rendered":"Refugees in a Refugee Nation"},"content":{"rendered":"

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BY NICOLE SCHILIT<\/p>\n

The 100 men packed tightly in the barren room suffered from different degrees of malnourishment, a visible marker that distinguished how long each had spent in the prison.\u00a0 The worst off had been jailed up to four years.\u00a0 They were being held as prisoners in a military detention center in Eritrea, but none of them had been tried or convicted in a court.<\/p>\n

Kedane recollects the conditions within the 5 x 10 meter room he shared with 99 other men during his four-month stay in the prison.\u00a0 When he talks about his imprisonment, \u00a0which took place between a failed and successful escape attempt from the country, he refers to the torture and beatings nonchalantly because they had become a regrettable but normal part of life in Eritrea. \u00a0In addition to the physical torture Kedane and the others were not provided clean water and were nearly starved to death. They were held in an underground cell with extreme temperatures, sweltering during the day and freezing at night. \u00a0\u00a0Kedane was one of the lucky ones who made it out and eventually reached Israel.\u00a0 When he thinks back on it it now he says, \u201c It was like what the Jewish people face\u2026. maybe. It was similar\u201d to the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

Isayas, also a refugee from Eritrea, explains how his determination to be free motivated him to eventually escape from prison.\u00a0 \u201cI could not live like this.\u00a0 I literally had no choice. No option was worse than it was at that time,\u201d he said. After trying unsuccessfully to dig himself out of his cell using a fork, Isayas realized his only chance was to end up in the infirmary.\u00a0\u00a0 He settled on poisoning himself.\u00a0 After he ingested bleach Isayas did make it to the prison infirmary, but he almost died in the process. When Isayas was chained to his hospital bed he slipped his skinny malnourished wrist through the handcuff and escaped.\u00a0 After that he walked for 72 hours on foot before reaching temporary safety.<\/p>\n

Kedane and Isayas were born in Eritrea and this story of leaving their country is not unique. <\/strong>Like many others, they are fleeing mandatory, indefinite military service, arbitrary arrests, torture, and imprisonments without charges, trials, or lawyers.\u00a0 They are leaving a country with no freedom of movement and where they are always afraid of who is watching them.\u00a0 After gaining their independence from neighboring Ethiopia 20 years ago, Eritreans endure dismal conditions and what has essentially been the elimination of any form of civil society.\u00a0 These are the reasons persuading many Eritreans to risk the chance of imprisonment to escape the country.<\/p>\n

Domoz was imprisoned for only three months in Eritrea.\u00a0\u00a0 When he was caught at the border trying to escape he called the American woman he worked for.\u00a0 He asked her to contact the authorities and tell them that he had stolen money from her.\u00a0 The sentence for theft is significantly shorter than the sentence for being caught leaving the military service and trying to escape the country.\u00a0 That much was clear, but when asked about how the actual sentences were for each crime Domoz responded, \u201cWhat is the punishment? There is no punishment in this country, it depends on the day.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Had Domoz been convicted of fleeing he likely would have been in prison for three to four years.<\/p>\n

Some people who flee Eritrea end up in refugee camps in northern Ethiopia, however many of the travel through Sudan, often making several stops, each that may last anywhere from a few weeks to over a year. \u00a0\u00a0From Sudan smugglers help refugees from all over Africa cross over to start a new life in a country that they believe will be better than where they started.\u00a0\u00a0 Since 2007, more than 35,000 non-Jewish African refugees, most from Eritrea and Sudan, have been smuggled into Egypt and across to the border it shares with Israel.<\/p>\n

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Zebib waited in the shortest line for her turn to be interrogated.\u00a0 The lines on either side of her, designated for Arabic, and Tigrinya speakers were much longer but the fact that she had learned English in Eritrea gave her an advantage. \u00a0Zebib had just arrived in Israel after crossing the border from Egypt into Israel during the night.\u00a0 During her intake interview she could barely stop crying long enough to answer the interrogator\u2019s questions.\u00a0 She was not sad, just overwhelmed and exhausted from the stressful journey.<\/p>\n

During the interview a man asked Zebib to verify details about the town she was born in to confirm she was who she said she was. \u00a0The interviewer even knew who the leader of her military camp had been.\u00a0 Many Ethiopians try to come into Israel through the same means as the Eritreans.\u00a0 When they arrive they lie and say they are Eritrean because they think it will help them.\u00a0 Although Israelis make this distinction between Eritreans and Ethiopians, the Jewish state\u2019s media denies that the conditions in Eritrea are that bad and refers to them as infiltrators instead of asylum seekers.<\/p>\n

In many ways Zebib was lucky, her journey through Sinai in Egypt mild compared to many other Eritreans attempting to come through to Israel. \u00a0Had she come just six months later she likely would have been held hostage by Bedouin smugglers who demand up to three or four times the amount of money a refugee had already paid.\u00a0 The refugees who have been held hostage were physically restrained and beaten until they were able to collect the obscene amount of money from their family back in Eritrea or in some cases family or friends already resettled somewhere else in the world.\u00a0\u00a0 The refugees are spoken to frankly by the Bedouins who inform that they being hostile and demanding more money because they are Christians and believe that the Eritreans are going to Israel as part of a larger scheme to attack Arabs.\u00a0\u00a0 The Sudanese, who are largely Muslim, are exempt from this treatment when they travel through Egypt.<\/p>\n

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Maya Paley is an American Israeli currently working at ASSAF, (Hebrew acronym for \u201cOrganization for Aiding Refugees\u201d), an Israeli non-profit organization that runs programs to support and protect African refugees including Kedane, Isayas, Domoz, and Zebib.\u00a0 Maya has long black curly hair that juts out of her head and creates a halo of curls that many of the male refugees compliment her on.\u00a0 More distinct than even Maya\u2019s hair though is her voice, which rises several decibels above the general volume level in a room when she gets excited.<\/p>\n

Maya has become very close with many of the refugees during the time she\u2019s been working in Israel.\u00a0\u00a0 For many African refugees living in Israel, Maya is the most stable and comforting component of their lives now.\u00a0 But still there is little she is able to do to change the conditions her friends face.\u00a0\u00a0 The most obvious problems the refugees face are constant discrimination by passer byers as well as many employers.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy boss gives me five hours worth of work to complete in two hours.\u00a0 While I am rushing the Israelis are working slow, they are relaxed and laughing,\u201d Zebib says.\u00a0\u00a0 Her hourly wage is less than her Israeli co-workers even though they do the same work.\u00a0 And Zebib never receives the money she has earned for working overtime at a cleaning company. But she is one of the luckier ones because she has a job and is able to work decent hours compared to Domoz who works 18 hour days, 6 days a week.<\/p>\n

Isayas recently quit his job.\u00a0 He said it humiliated him to be paid so little.\u00a0 Back in Eritrea his PhD was recognized and he taught physics and was respected.\u00a0\u00a0 Now all that is left of that world and his skills from it are the constant references he makes to matter and gravity that he includes as analogies in his speech, which is often about human dignity and democracy.\u00a0 He is incredibly focused on his duty to act as a representative for the refugee community in Tel Aviv, often volunteering to speak at different protests and rallies.\u00a0 Speaking in public allows him to harness his frustrations from his situation in Israel into something productive.\u00a0 While Maya supports Isayas participating in these activities, she is annoyed that he doesn\u2019t take care of himself.\u00a0\u00a0 She is often lecturing him that he has to eat food and cannot just smoke cigarettes instead of eating.<\/p>\n

There are many times when Maya feels closer to the refugees than to other Israelis even. \u00a0\u201cSometimes I feel like I am personally living on the fringes of Israeli society, along with the refugees I work with,\u201d Maya said.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cOut on dates men I\u2019ve only just met have argued with me about the refugees, claiming that they are only here for money and that they do not belong in Israel.\u201d Maya says that when these men have made general and false statements about the refugees that she feels it is her duty to respond and to explain who the refugees are. \u201cConsequently, the conversation becomes very heavy and serious and usually ends with an awkward goodbye.\u201d\u00a0 Maya has not been on many second dates.<\/p>\n

This is the result of her supporting an unpopular issue among Israelis.\u00a0 According to her, many Israelis feel that organizations like ASSAF are promoting the deterioration of the Jewish character of the State of Israel by advocating on behalf of the rights of the refugees.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m proud of the work I\u2019m doing here. It is often the case that the person I\u2019m meeting will want to argue with me right away, like they\u2019ve been waiting to argue with someone about this for a long time.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 She gives one recent example: a newly introduced friend asked what she did for a living before even learning her name \u201cHe instantly started yelling at me that he is against the refugees, that it bothers him to see them, and that he doesn\u2019t care about them and they don\u2019t belong here.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 This person told Maya he knew more than she did and that she was wrong about them.\u00a0\u00a0 People like this only fuel Maya\u2019s commitment to her work advocating on behalf of the refugees who don\u2019t have the opportunity to be heard themselves.<\/p>\n

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The Israeli government\u2019s solution to the problem has been to build a closed refugee camp in the Negev desert to house the \u201cinfiltrators\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 The government says it intends to complete the facility within nine months.\u00a0\u00a0 Maya explains that the Israeli government plans to make good on its policy barring asylum seekers from working.\u00a0 \u201cEssentially, people will have a place to sleep, but they will be living in the middle of the desert in the south of the country and will not be permitted to work,\u201d She said.<\/p>\n

Many refugees have already been detained and treated as criminals without ever committing a crime in their respective countries. \u00a0The detention center in Israel would only serve to further criminalize these innocent people, according to ASSAF.\u00a0 Maya says that \u201cthe main problem with detention in Israel is that because there is no\u00a0proper Refugee Status Determination procedure and so\u00a0few people are given refugee status here, asylum seekers can potentially be detained for indefinite periods of time, which is nothing short of inhumane.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of the refugees, including Domoz who works exhausting shifts six days a week, \u00a0feel that the state has begun a more aggressive approach with the media, bringing increased attention to the \u201cproblem\u201d of African migrants through the use of propaganda.\u00a0\u00a0 The government\u2019s tactic of calling the refugees \u201cinfiltrators\u201d instead of identifying them as the asylum seekers has raised public ire.\u00a0 More Israelis are speaking out against the refugees, and there is increased xenophobia because people are frustrated\u00a0that the asylum seekers are sleeping in the parks near their homes.<\/p>\n

The Mayor in Eilat, a southern beach town not far from the Egyptian border, is leading a campaign against the refugees by flying red flags on the lamp posts all around the city.\u00a0\u00a0 He has even suggested building a fence around Eilat to prevent further \u201cinfiltrators\u201d from entering the city.\u00a0 Benyamin Netanyahu, Israel\u2019s prime minister has been quoted saying “We must stop the mass entry of illegal migrant workers because of the very serious threat to the character and future to the State of Israel,\u201d<\/p>\n

Yiftach Millo, the founder of ASSAF, says the extreme response by Israelis to the presence of the refugees comes from fear.\u00a0 They are scared that because they share a border with Africa that Israel will be flooded with even more Africans in the future, that there will be no end in sight.\u00a0\u00a0 Others who are more sympathetic to the African population in Israel believe Israel\u2019s major criticism is where they took the memory of the holocaust.\u00a0 Some say Israel took it and employed it as a nationalistic excuse of exclusion of Arabs, Palestinians, and refugees because they see these groups as a security threat and a demographic threat to the Jewish majority.<\/p>\n

A nation that was originally established on the premise that it serve as a home to refugees is making it clear that unless you\u2019re a Jewish refugee, you\u2019re not welcome.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year the Eritrean Ambassador to Israel, Tesfamariam Tekeste Debbas, told Israeli news sources that Eritrea will not accept the \u201cinfiltrators\u201d back anymore.\u00a0 He claims that Israel should have sent the first one back in 2006, but now there are too many (up to 18,000) and it is too late for Israel to try this tactic. Israel only resettles a very small number of refugees each year in order to discourage future refugees from coming to Israel with the expectations that they will end up in the United States or Europe.\u00a0 And once the detention center is completed for incoming asylum seekers, Israeli employers will not be able to hire refugees as employees anymore, leaving the present population of refugees trapped in a country where they are not allowed to work.\u00a0 So the question now is, what will happen to the 18,000 Eritrean refugees already living in Israel?