- Title: Israel offers to pay African migrants to leave, threatens jail
- Date: 3rd January 2018
- Summary: JERUSALEM (JANUARY 3, 2018) (REUTERS) ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU WALKING INTO CABINET MEETING NETANYAHU IN CABINET MEETING CLOSE OF NETANYAHU (SOUNDBITE) (Hebrew) ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU SAYING: "The second mission is to deport those illegal infiltrators who illegally entered Israel prior to the construction of the barrier. This is approxim
- Embargoed: 17th January 2018 16:48
- Keywords: Israel African migrants Tel Aviv
- Location: JERUSALEM/ TEL AVIV AND HOLOT, ISRAEL
- City: JERUSALEM/ TEL AVIV AND HOLOT, ISRAEL
- Country: Israel
- Topics: Asylum/Immigration/Refugees,Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA0017WK2M2V
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Israel said on Wednesday (January 3) it would pay thousands of African migrants living illegally in the country to leave, threatening them with jail if they are caught after the end of March.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in public remarks at a cabinet meeting on the payment programme, said a barrier Israel completed in 2013 along its border with Egypt had effectively cut off a stream of "illegal infiltrators" from Africa after some 60,000 crossed the desert frontier.
The vast majority came from Eritrea and Sudan and many said they fled war and persecution as well as economic hardship, but Israel treats them as economic migrants.
The plan launched this week offers African migrants a $3,500 payment from the Israeli government and a free air ticket to return home or go to "third countries", which rights groups identified as Rwanda and Uganda.
Teklit Michael, a 29-asylum seeker from Eritrea living in Tel Aviv, said in response to the Israeli plan that paying money to other governments to take in Africans was akin to "smuggling them to other countries". - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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