Israel’s payments to the Eritrean embassy – to speed up the exit of Eritreans

Pro-Isaias Eritreans amit going to the Eritrean embassy this month’s clashes, which paid for their travel to the riot

Source: Haaretz

Israel Transferred Tens of Thousands of Shekels to Eritrean Embassy Two Years Ago

Senior officials in Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority say the money was intended for transit documents for Eritreans living in Israel who had agreed to voluntary repatriation. The transfer is rare evidence of ties between the agency and dictator Isaias Afwerki.

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Eritrean protesters clash with Israeli riot police in Tel Aviv, in early September.Credit: Ohad Zwigenberg /APBar PelegGet email notification for articles from Bar PelegFollow

Sep 25, 2023 11:46 pm IDT

Israel paid the Eritrean embassy tens of thousands of shekels two years ago, Haaretz has learned, in what senior officials in the Interior Ministry’s Population and Immigration Authority say was intended for transit documents for Eritrean citizens living in Israel who had agreed to voluntary repatriation.

According to past and present senior officials at the Immigration Authority, the transfer was exempt from tender.

An examination showed that Eritrea was the only country to have received money from the immigration agency for any service in recent years. In response to a question from Haaretz, the agency said its director plans to convene a meeting within several weeks to discuss the matter in detail.

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Like other Western states that are signatories to the 1951 Refugee Convention, Israel observes a policy of non-refoulement in regard to Eritrea, meaning it does not deport or involuntarily return refugees or asylum seekers back to Eritrea, which is unwilling to accept the repatriation of its citizens if they are returned by force.

According to the Immigration Population Authority, 1,026 citizens of African countries returned voluntarily to their countries of origin between 2019 and 2022. It is estimated that several hundred of those were Eritreans. 60 Eritreans returned to the country this year.

Eritrea has an embassy in Israel, but since 2018 there has been no permanent ambassador, only a charge d’affaires and a small staff. Israel’s embassy in Eritrea, meanwhile, has not been staffed for several years. According to sources in Israel, the Eritrean charge d’affaires is not free to make independent decisions and receives direct instructions from Asmara, the country’s capital.

Following riots in Israel in 2020 and again this month between regime supporters and opponents, it turned out that the embassy offers legal aid to regime supporters, and that the mission’s representatives came to several court hearings dealing with the extension of the detention of several Eritreans. This is one of several reasons why regime opponents among the local Eritrean community are fearful of embassy officials.

Sources in this community and in human rights organizations say that the embassy serves the long arm of dictator Isaias Afwerki, who is trying to tax these asylum seekers.

Some of the people arrested at the recent riots said at hearings dealing with their status that they had been in the embassy before going to an event it had organized, noting that the embassy had financed their travel to the event, and that they had been in contact with embassy officials before clashes broke out.

The transfer of money from the immigration agency to the Tel Aviv embassy in 2021 is rare evidence of ties between the two. A former senior official at the immigration agency told Haaretz that appeals to the agency by the embassy in recent years, mainly since its staff was reduced, are relatively rare. He said that in one such recent appeal, the embassy requested that religious figures supporting the regime be allowed to visit Israel, with the embassy guaranteeing that each one of them leaves the country and returns to Eritrea. In 2017, two Immigration and Population Authority personnel were documented at an embassy event.

The website documenting government acquisitions notes that as part of these ties, the embassy was paid 71,999 shekels (currently $18,874) for administrative services and consultation, as well as for forming a policy of looking after Eritreans in Israel. However, according to a senior agency official, the money was intended for speeding up the exit of Eritrean citizens, after the embassy had created difficulties in printing travel documents for these people, thus delaying their departure.

As a rule, the dictatorship does not accept people expelled by coercion, only people returning to the country willingly, after declaring their loyalty to Eritrea at the embassy. According to testimonies from the Eritrean community I Israel, they are forced to pay a high tax to receive the required documents.

The Population and Immigration Authority is in contact with the embassies of many countries, dealing with issues pertaining to foreign citizens residing in Israel. Haaretz has found that none of these countries were paid by the Authority except Eritrea, however.

Most African asylum seekers in Israel are Eritreans, with another large group from Sudan. There is no Sudanese embassy in Israel and no official relations between the two countries, despite some closer ties developing recently between the military government in Sudan and Israel.

The Eritrean embassy did not respond to requests for comment.