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| By Itamar Eichner | "Ynet", April 29, 2007 |
Darfur refugee asks PM to release her father
Eight-year-old Afaf's family fled Sudan genocide; father jailed in Israel for being citizen of enemy state
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert received a moving letter from an 8-year-old Sudanese girl named Afaf, a refugee from Darfur, asking him to release her father from jail. Afaf's family fled the Sudan genocide to neighboring Egypt, but their troubles did not end there: The entire family was sent to jail, and Afaf was put in isolation for five days.
The family members then decided to escape to Israel, but were arrested by the IDF upon entering the country. The mother and her children were released to a battered women's shelter in the north, while the father was jailed for being a citizen of an enemy country, although he is recognized as a refugee by the United Nations.
Afaf sent a letter to Olmert and to Knesset Members Gilad Erdan (Likud) and Avishay Braverman (Labor), who head the Knesset Lobby for Darfur Refugees.
"We came to Israel because we needed a safe place to live in. My father has been in jail for a long time and my mother is very sad," she wrote. "Please talk to the people at the prison and tell them that my father is a good man. Please don’t send us to Egypt."
There are currently 350 Sudanese refugees in Israel. But while the Western world has been helping the survivors, in Israel they are jailed for long periods of time without any judicial procedures.
Organizations such as the Hotline for Migrant Workers and the Refugee Rights Clinic in Tel Aviv University have temporarily transferred about 200 refugees to kibbutzim and moshavim, but more than 100 are still in jail.
A rally in solidarity with the victims of the Darfur genocide will be held Sunday evening in Tel Aviv.
