Fate of African migrants in Israel is bleak as Uganda denies deportation deal

The fate of thousands of African migrants in Israel is still uncertain as Israel struggles to strike a deportation deal with Uganda under a new scheme after agreements with Rwanda and the U.N.’s refugee agency to find homes for those expelled fell through.

About 4,000 migrants have left Israel for Rwanda and Uganda since 2013 under a voluntary programme but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come under pressure from his right-wing voter base to expel thousands more.

In January, Israel started handing out notices to male migrants from Eritrea and Sudan giving them three months to take the voluntary deal with a plane ticket and $3,500 or risk being thrown in jail.

The government said from April it would start forced deportations but rights groups challenged the move and Israel’s Supreme Court has issued a temporary injunction to give more time for the petitioners to argue against the plan.

Government representatives told the court on Tuesday that an envoy was in an African country finalising a deportation deal after an arrangement with Rwanda to take migrants expelled under the new measures fell through.

The representatives did not name the country in court sessions open to the public though Israeli lawmakers have previously said the two countries it was planning to deport migrants to were Rwanda and Uganda.

After the Rwanda deal fell through, the government struck an agreement with the U.N.’s refugee agency (UNHCR) to relocate 16,250 migrants to Western countries but Netanyahu scrapped it after an outcry from right-wing politicians furious that thousands more would be allowed to stay in Israel.

Uganda, a key Western ally in the fight against Islamist militants in East Africa, also denied there were discussions about accepting deportees under the new scheme.

“We are not aware of any Israeli envoy here. Let Israelis tell you who that envoy here is going to sign an agreement with, sign with who? With the foreign affairs, with the president, minister of internal affairs, with who? On what date are they signing?” Okello Oryem, Uganda’s junior foreign affairs minister told Reuters on Wednesday.

The fate of tens of thousands of migrants who entered Israel illegally through its desert border with Egypt and were granted temporary visas has posed a moral dilemma for a state founded as a national home for Jews and a haven from persecution.

Israeli rights groups say the country can absorb the estimated 37,000 migrants still there, or should find them safe destinations such as those agreed under the defunct UNHCR deal.

The rights groups have accused Netanyahu, who is under police investigation for corruption, of playing political games to appeal to his right-wing supporters.

The government calls the migrants “infiltrators” and says they have come to find work. The migrants and rights groups say they are asylum seekers fleeing persecution.