Seeking Freedom, Darfuris find Imprisonment
Over the past three years, the genocidal conflict plaguing the Darfur region of Sudan, in which between 200,000 and 400,000 people have died, has motivated many of the world’s nations to reach out to the Darfur’s suffering people. Such help has often taken the form of direct assistance to the conflict’s refugees who have been offered new homes in places from N’Djamena, Chad to Portland, Maine.
And yet, some refugees are not so lucky as to be offered homes in foreign states, and are forced to take matters into their own hands, fleeing to whatever country they imagine would be most likely to welcome them. In the past two months approximately 500 of these fleeing refugees have attempted to start their lives anew in Israel, which, given the recent deterioration of conditions for Darfuris living in Egypt, has become a prime destination for those seeking to escape the genocide.
And yet their reception in Israel has been far from welcoming. Indeed, instead of being met with sympathy and assistance, as they expect, these refugees are quickly hunted down and sent to Maasiyahu Prison in central Israel, where some of them have been living for over a year and a half. Most have already survived harrowing journeys before they arrive in the country, suffering the loss of many family members, waiting for days at the Egyptian-Israeli border fearing that they might be shot by Egyptian police, then finally slithering under the fence only to be immediately captured by the waiting Israeli authorities. They are then brought to the Israeli prison where they have no right to appeal against detainment due to their official status under Israeli law as ‘enemy nationals.’
According to the enemy infiltrators law of 1957, under which the Sudanese refugees are being arrested, Israel can arrest and detain any members of an ‘enemy state’ indefinitely and without judicial review. Sudan, with which Israel has no official relations, has long been considered one of these ‘enemy states’ and the Israeli government has thus far refused to differentiate between the official Sudanese government (which is believed to be supporting the violent campaign against the people of Darfur) and the fleeing Sudanese refugees. And yet, it is interesting to note that, in 1949, the fledgling Israeli state insisted on a clause in the Geneva Conventions mandating that countries treat refugees from enemy countries differently from true enemy nationals, citing the experience of Jews fleeing the holocaust to Great Britain.
The hypocrisy of Israel’s current policy is admirably highlighted by these two pieces of legislation. Israel was founded by a group of people who had just suffered a devastating genocidal massacre and who fled to a new home in the hope of starting a fresh, better life. Now, sixty years later, another group of suffering individuals are seeking the same new life—but rather than being met with sympathy and understanding by a people who once underwent similar hardships, they are being thrown in prison to await deportation. Israeli citizens and human rights organizations have recognized the inhumanity of these policies and are pressuring the Israeli government to relent and begin granting the refugees at least temporary resident status. But so far, there has been no softening on the part of Olmert’s administration (which has announced that it will send all Sudanese refugees back to Egypt, from where most of them have just fled, and begin construction of a 132-mile fence along the border of Israel and Egypt). Let us hope that as internal opposition increases and the stream of refugees continues, the administration will realize the profound inhumanity and hypocrisy of such policies and will begin to welcome these suffering refugees into a new life in Israel.