BICOM

Israel faces a dilemma in dealing with some 20 Eritreans trapped just beyond the country’s southern border fence, after the United Nations envoy pleaded the asylum seekers’ case.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ representative in Israel, William Tall, expressed concern for the fate of the migrants, and urged Jerusalem to allow them in. Tall said any attempt to force asylum seekers to return to Egypt, where they face the risk of being captured by traffickers, as ‘irresponsible,’ stressing that African migrants have been subjected to torture and abuse in the past.

The group of migrants have been trapped between the Israeli and Egyptian border fences for the past six days, exposed to the elements. Currently IDF soldiers are supplying migrants with food and water.

‘We will not bring the Eritreans into Israeli territory’, said Israel’s Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who has taken a tough line on migrants and leading a policy of deportation of mainly Sudanese and Eritrean entrants.

‘It is hardest for me, of anyone, to see these pictures, and return families to their homelands. It is hard for me to see these pictures, but I am the one who has to make the difficult decision, and if I have to choose between the good of the state, its civilians, and its security, [and the good of the asylum seekers] I will choose that there be a fence, that they won’t enter, and instead return to their country,” Yishai continued.

In an interview with Army Radio Wednesday morning Yishai said: ‘Every day there are people stuck there. If there were no fence, and if we weren’t steadfast, there would be a million people here. Don’t ask what we would do with a million refugees here – excuse me, migrant workers.’

The fence is part of a nearly completed 125-mile border barrier intended to keep African migrants out, and to protect Israel from militants from the Sinai desert launching cross-border attacks.

Israel recently embarked on a tough new policy, including detentions, designed to stem the flow across the Egyptian border of African migrants – around 70,000 of whom are believed to be in the country – which accelerated after 20 Sudanese asylum seekers were killed during a 2005 demonstration in Cairo.

The Israeli NGO, We Are Refugees petitioned the High Court of Justice on Wednesday, demanding that Defence Minister Ehud Barak and Yishai explain why they have denied entry to the group. The court is to discuss the petition this morning.