TEL AVIV, Israel — In a dusty detention center in Israel’s Negev desert, Tomas Yomani, an asylum seeker from Eritrea in East Africa, has been biding his time for nine months while under the watch of Israeli guards.
Yomani, 30, can't work because the nearest city is hours away. And if he misses roll call taken three times a day, he could be deported to another African country and risk personal danger eight years after he fled Eritrea because of human rights abuses.
“I live in fear always,” he told USA TODAY in a phone interview from the camp, called Holot, or “sands” in Hebrew. “I left my country because I was afraid of being imprisoned, and now I am imprisoned again.”
Thousands of African asylum seekers like Yomani face grim choices: Stay in Israel, where they are safe but with limited freedom, or agree to Israel’s relocation program that sends refugees to Rwanda or Uganda to face more persecution and danger.
“Israel is a democratic country. I didn’t think it should be this way,” Yomani lamented.
Israel's treatment of African refugees has come under attack from local human rights groups, who say a country founded by Jewish refugees persecuted during World War II should be more understanding of the asylum seekers' plight.
“The entire world is dealing with millions of refugees. It’s baseless for Israel, a developed country, to claim that it cannot take its part in carrying the burden,” said Dror Sadot, spokesperson for the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants, an Israeli human rights group. Government officials "refuse to recognize (the Africans') existence,” she said.
Israel has granted asylum to only nine Africans refugees, one of the lowest acceptance rates among industrialized democracies, according to Sadot.
Yomani, 30, can't work because the nearest city is hours away. And if he misses roll call taken three times a day, he could be deported to another African country and risk personal danger eight years after he fled Eritrea because of human rights abuses.
“I live in fear always,” he told USA TODAY in a phone interview from the camp, called Holot, or “sands” in Hebrew. “I left my country because I was afraid of being imprisoned, and now I am imprisoned again.”
Thousands of African asylum seekers like Yomani face grim choices: Stay in Israel, where they are safe but with limited freedom, or agree to Israel’s relocation program that sends refugees to Rwanda or Uganda to face more persecution and danger.
“Israel is a democratic country. I didn’t think it should be this way,” Yomani lamented.
Israel's treatment of African refugees has come under attack from local human rights groups, who say a country founded by Jewish refugees persecuted during World War II should be more understanding of the asylum seekers' plight.
“The entire world is dealing with millions of refugees. It’s baseless for Israel, a developed country, to claim that it cannot take its part in carrying the burden,” said Dror Sadot, spokesperson for the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants, an Israeli human rights group. Government officials "refuse to recognize (the Africans') existence,” she said.
Israel has granted asylum to only nine Africans refugees, one of the lowest acceptance rates among industrialized democracies, according to Sadot.