Israel to deport Sudanese migrants, according to report

In UN approved plan, 200 asylum seekers are to leave Israel by plane for a third country before repatriation, will receive resettlement grants.

By JPOST.COM STAFF, HERB KEINON
311_African migrants (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
311_African migrants
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
Two hundred Sudanese asylum seekers were set to be flown from Ben Gurion International Airport in Israel to an undisclosed third country on Monday evening, Channel 2 reported. The Sudanese migrant will then be repatriated to their home country, according to the planned operation.
The government's resettlement plan has been in the works at the Interior Ministry for several months, according to Channel 2, and  the operation was reported to have already received UN approval.
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Israel has agreed to give the Sudanese a small grant to help them re-acclimate to life in Sudan in return for their voluntary repatriation.
Further details regarding the repatriation plan have yet to be cleared for publication, Channel 2 reported on Monday evening.
At the end of November, the cabinet announced its approval of plans to build a detention center for illegal migrants near Ketziot.
On the same day as the cabinet's plan approval, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu took journalists to the Egyptian border to see the work on a new barrier there and to illustrate the scope of the problem of illegal migration.
According to figures presented to Netanyahu at a point overlooking the work along the border, about 60 kilometers north of Eilat, around 1,000 illegal immigrants a month – or more than 12,000 a year – are currently crossing from Egypt into Israel.
One IDF official noted that this number was nearly equal to the annual number of immigrants entering the country legally, a number that stood at some 16,200 in 2009.