Refugee Shelter Update upon return to Israel

Shelter update refugees from Africa

It is snowing in Jerusalem today and sleeting with 50 mph winds in Tel Aviv.

I send out my deepest thanks to those of you that have chosen to donate to help the African refugees that have made it to Israel. As you know, there were approximately 2,500 refugees from Africa in Israel when I returned to the USA in early November. There were two rooms that were being used as shelters that were overcrowded with 220 people. Both were disgusting. Volunteers had found another site that was much nicer to be used to house single parent women and their children as well as minors that had no family. The other two old sites would be for men, and if needed, families with a father. There were also volunteers looking for apartments for families so that they didn’t have to stay in the shelters. The problem was that the local government was not helping and seemed to be apathetic. There was no money for the situation and volunteers were working full-time.

The situation has received much more publicity in the press. As I am back in Israel for a week, now, I have learned something about the recent situation. Much has changed. From my understanding, there is a lot of good news. Governmental leaders have now begun to make the situation a priority. The former Chief of Staff under the Ehud Barak administration has made it possible to release a lot of government funds for specific tasks such as rent and utilities. The mayor and vice-mayor of Tel Aviv, Yael Dayan (daughter of the famous defense minister Moshe Dayan) has been to the shelters several times and it seems that the municipality will be stepping up to make a difference. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtVty.jhtml?sw=refugees&itemNo=949322
The funds that were raised in the USA are still needed to help with day to day costs for food and supplies at the shelters.

The newer shelter for the families is on the 4th floor in a seedy part of town. You have to pass a couple of brothels in the hallway on the bottom floor before you get to the stairwell to make your climb up the 4th floor (5th including the ground floor). I could see the pink covered bed and carpet right inside the glass windows and the older obese Madame on the chaise lounge. She motioned for me to come in. I waived her off with a “no thanks”. As I started up the stairs, careful not to hit my head on the cement overhangs at the doors, I hoped that she was really just the Madame and not the sex worker. Upstairs there are a few tight rooms with bunk beds, a kitchen, and a place where washing machines will be installed. There is an open middle area with volunteers and little children playing. This place is much better. Some paint and minor upgrades will make this inhabitable.

While there were around 220 refugees in the shelters when I left, somehow there were around 420 when I came back. One of two horrible shelters (formerly a bar on the ground floor with a chronic sewage problem) chose not to renew the lease for the refugees. On the same day that volunteers had to find housing for the 270 people, the prison in the south of Israel released and bused another 150 people to Tel Aviv.

I was on the street in front of the shelter when buses from the prison started arriving. There were hundreds of Africans from Eritrea, Ivory Coast, and Sudan standing on the sidewalk in front of the new shelter, each with some sort of duffle bag, suitcase, or grocery bag with all of their material possessions. All were men. They had no idea what to do or where to go. It was night and about 55 degrees F. Some work flip flops and some T-shirts. The key volunteers all were there and in action:
The ARDC (African Refugee Development Center) people: Alice from Luxembourg and Yohannes (Johnny) from Kenya.
Local leaders Shlomit and Keren (on whom I have a small crush),
Young national folk hero, Elisheva.

They were all lost in the melee.

I waited to see if I could be put to use but they were too occupied with the crisis of the moment to delegate. I didn’t have a camera to record the scene. Yet, I watched and observed that, as a refugee or even a prisoner of some type, your life is made up of a lot of waiting. You don’t know why you are waiting or for what.

I began to speak with some of the refugees. One man from the Ivory Coast claimed that he had not eaten in two days. He said that there was food but that he could not get to it before it was gone. There is a sincerely in their eyes. He didn’t look away when he told me this and he wasn’t asking for anything. I brought him a sandwich from a nearby convenience store and he discretely pocketed it. I saw him sharing half with a friend a few moments later. When I asked about his story, he told me that he and his mother are the only survivors in the family. He thinks his mother is safe in another country. His father and all of his brothers and sisters were murdered in the tribal wars and village cleansing. He came through Nigeria to Niger to Libya. Then, he made his way through Egypt and made it to Israel. He, like all that I have encountered, told me of the overt racism in the Arab North African states. They are taunted, hassled, followed, ripped off, and often not paid for work rendered. As they were illegals in Libya, they had no recourse. He was in the Israeli prison for a month before being released and brought to the shelter in Tel Aviv.

Another man was from Eritrea, formerly a part of Ethiopia. He wore a t-shirt and told me that he was cold and had no more clothes. He was also a licensed electrician. However, since he was not licensed in Libya and is not in Israel, he fears that he cannot work here, either. He said he was in prison in Israel for three months. I had stood in front of the shelter for several hours in case there was some way that I could help. I had plans to meet a young couple for dinner that night who also sympathized with the refugees (Plitim in Hebrew) and wanted to see the situation that I described. When they heard the young man say he had no more clothes, my friend, Doron, went to his car and gave the man his jacket. Both men said that this would never have happened in the Arab countries. Doron, his wife, Gafnit, and I left for a little while to get a bite. At dinner, we contemplated adopting a few people for the night as we knew that they would have stark accommodations that night, if any. After getting dropped off at home, I went back to the shelter after midnight to see if anyone needed a place. There was no one on the sidewalk. I was so happy to see that somehow, they had found a way to get indoors.
The next day, I received the following email:


Hi all,

This is the result of a long day of moving people from the Levanda shelter to Har Zion and receiving refugees from prison:

1. Levanda: closed
2. Matalon : 190 Eritreans
3. Harzion 3: 82 women/children, 125 men (basement), mainly Eritreans and Ivorians
4. Florentine: 80 Eritreans and Sudanese (only 1 night, the people have to move out by today, Tuesday)
5. Levinsky Park: 70 Eritreans and Ivorians
6. Golomb 52: 29 Eritrean women
7. Quar Shalom (?): 20 Sudanese
8. Jafo: 65 Ivorians
9. Givataim: 40
10. Achoti: 20 Eritreans

= approx. 720 (!!) refugees in 10 places.
Please correct me if I am wrong regarding the numbers of refugees in the different shelters.

A big thank you to everybody who was helping today !

Best,
Alice

Remember that there were about 220 when I left in November and there was no help from the government. Alice called Vice-Mayor Yael Dayan who was very angry with the government for dumping so many people on her city with no notice. She feels this is too much for one city to handle. Yael thought of sending the next bus load to the Prime-Minister’s house as a protest and to get the Federal Government involved.

I do not yet have more details of the situation but I will stay in the scene. Most shelters in the USA are for substance abusers or the mentally ill. These are people who were simply born in the wrong place and had to flee for their lives.

Randy