Oh well, at least they’ve managed to flee from all the killing and bloodshed.
May they find peace and stability in their new home, and may the filthy butchers who drove them away and slaughtered their people face the fates they deserve.
Darfurian Refugees Struggle to Settle In Israel
SudaneseThinker
SudaneseThinker
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
“May they find peace and stability in their new home”
I cannot speak for Israel or Israelis, obviously, but if it were up to me, I’d want them to have work permits and even citizenship.
Ideally they should return to Sudan once the situation permits and encourage other Darfurians (and even other Sudanese) to visit Israel and apply for work permits or student visas.
Or, if they want, they should remain in Israel, become citizens, serve in the army and fight. An army unit made up of Jews, Druze, Bedouins, and Darfurians would be an excellent example of multiculturalism at work.
This doesn’t have to be a loss for Israel, since they will obviously work and pay taxes, and I am sure they are absolutely willing to do jobs that no Israeli would want to do.
Or perhaps Europe should allow them to move further and live and work in the EU. (But it will be a cold day in hell when the EU will accept refugees from Sudan via Israel.)
I think this is good for Israel and Darfurians. It is about time those persecuted by Arab dictatorships learned to team up and cooperate.
It’s interesting to note that the whole Darfurian refugees issue has vanished from the Israeli media. The Beast got bored and moved on. They are no longer even mentioning it when the Egyptians shoot refugees, unless it was as part of something else (like a major drug anti-smuggling operation that also caught some refugees being smuggles).
Overall, though, the existing refugees seem to be integrating remarkably well. They are still being processed through Kibbutzim and Moshavim (which is a very soft landing for a ‘fugee) and they seem to do well enough in the cities as well (at least in Tel Aviv there are quite a few refugees among the African foreign workers).
Given the circumstances, I think this is satisfactory. And mostly thanks to the network of private charities in Israel, proving once again that less government interference is better
Totally off topic. I’m trying to cut down a bit on the trhousands of cookies that are saved from the browser.
Are the cookies (several) from this site of actual benefit to you (Drima)?
Nope Don, so you can go ahead and delete them.
Thanks for asking.
Darfur is kind of out of the news worldwide when you think about it…not just Israel.
The US elections….milk in China..global economic disaster, hurricaines….it is all good news for Khartoum…gets people’s eyes on other matters.
In fairness to us humans…the stream of misery is constant…just branches off and we tend to toss our sandbags at the high water points…
When the Messiah shows up…maybe things will get beter
put your minds at ease. being an Israeli journalist and having covered the refugees/asylum seekers story for the past 3 years, it’s not that the beast has tired and moved on. The refugees and asylum seekers slowly blend into israeli fabric but we still report on the situation when needed, for example, when the IDF deported 91 asylum seekers back to Egypt this August right after they crossed the border(ilegal), we were right there to spread the word.
As for Sudanese refugees, we have nearly 1000 refugees from Darfur- nearly all of them have recieved TPS and are able to start on the long journey back to normal lives. Israel is also home to some 2500 South Sudanese asylum seekers , most of them have work permits. Not everything is rosy and the Government still tries it’s best to ignore the situation but I have to say that in the past 3 years we’ve made a great change.
I wish I could post all of the links to the great stories we’ve covered here but I feel that that or even a full analysis on the situation would be hogging Drima’s blog.
Tamar, please don’t hesitate. Drop all the links you want and if your comment gets stuck in moderation, I’ll make sure it gets approved.
Thanks for all the work you do. This Sudanese right here appreciates it very much.
I will try and concentrate on the good stuff only.
here are a few links to my stories over the past years.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3413031,00.html
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3416758,00.html
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3351374,00.html
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3338581,00.html
if anyone manages thru these 4 , I’ll add more.
I need to say, or write, that working with the Sudanese/African refugee community in the past years changed me totally. I’ve heard the most horrid stories but have also witnessed great hope and courage, and the many volunteers working together have made me abandon at times my built in cynicism.
2 stories that were not done in English but I want to bring up here:
1. While visiting Darfuree refugees in a kibbutz near Eilat, I met a young women(roughly my age- is that young?), after we had lunch in her apartment and spent a couple hours trying to gossip and joke in a unique mix of Arabic-English-Hebrew-Massalit… I learned she had 6 sons, five were murdered in front of her eyes in Darfur, she than was gang raped, left for dead, managed to escepe with the only son alive, made it into Israel on foot and after a year of acute depression and fear, was slowly getting back to life. This was a women I’ve just joked with about men and dating. she’s now working full time on the kibbutz.
2. Adam, a 19 year old Darfuree, escaped massacre when 14, reached Cairo, than Israel at 15, spent a year!!! in prison here, is now studying for his Bagrut (finals) here in a religious boarding school(yes, he’s a muslim)at the highest levels, co-manages the Sons of Darfur association here and will go on to study computer science in university soon.
he’s recently learned that his parents, whom he left for dead, were alive in an IDP camp in Darfur. he plans on going back one day and leading a change.
no, not everything is rosy as I said, but we’re trying. We are. We’ll get there.
and to top it off here are 2 links to works of my fellow photographers. The first is from our trip to Chad last November, taken by my talanted photographer(and friend) Kobi wolf
http://www.lightstalkers.org/galleries/contact_sheet/6511
the second best describes the Israeli side, it is the work of another talented young men, Natan Dvir, we’ve worked together for nearly 2 years.
http://my.ynet.co.il/pic/shelter/Shelter_heb_with_sound.html
this is long…… but not nearly as long as everything that has happened here in the past 3-4 years.
Israel is a very small country and so cannot absorb as many refugees as she should.
No other friendly country in the region(Jordan? Iraqi Kurdistan?) can really afford to absorb refugees from Sudan either.
What is the solution? Hope that only few refugees will make it to Israel? Hope that Europe will accept a few refugees? Hope that Europe will help Israel care for the refugees?
I think the last case would be best. But it’ll never happen.
Thanks for the links Tamar!
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