Israeli satellite company employed in tracking human rights crisis in Darfur

The Israeli commercial satellite company ImageSat, is being employed by Amnesty International in order to track the worst human rights abuse crisis of this century in Darfur. ImageSat along with a few other international commercial satellite companies are providing many sizable discounts and donations of satellite imagery in order to help locate refugee camps and provide an indelible record of the unimaginable magnitude of this human rights abuse crisis.

These images along with explanations can be found on the site:
EYES ON DARFUR

Egyptians kill 4 Sudanese refugees at Israeli border

The report appeared on Israel TV on Channel 10 on Friday night. An account of the report was filed by Associated Press and appears on the Ynet site
See the full report here

Egyptian soldiers beat two refugees to death, shoot others, Israeli TV reports

Egyptian soldiers killed four Sudanese refugees, beating two to death in front of horrified Israeli soldiers, an Israeli TV station reported Thursday, screening what it said was army surveillance video and interviews with the soldiers.

Egyptian police said that authorities arrested two Sudanese refugees Thursday, seriously injuring one when he scuffled with police. But Egyptian police Capt. Mohammed Badr did not report any deaths.

Channel 10 TV said the incident happened late Wednesday night. In the video, the refugees are seen running toward the border with Israel. Then, according to one of the soldiers, who was not identified and whose voice was distorted, Egyptian soldiers opened fire, killing two.
...
Last month, Egyptian border guards shot and killed a Sudanese woman and wounded four others. She was the first Sudanese refugee to be killed

In an earlier report on this blog titled: Sudanese Mother and Child Reunion, I posted the story of Israelis who held no bars to reunite Sudanese refugees with their child who got stuck on the other side of the border when they smuggled across the Israeli--Egyptian border. That same blog posting also included a story of Sudanese refugees hosted by a Jewish Jerusalem family.

It went on to ponder about the silence of the so called enlightened-world to Egypt’s brutal dictatorship and its litany of human rights abuses. Finally it stated that though the status of the Sudanese refugees in Israel remains unclear, the story of Israelis providing shelter for African Moslems, fleeing Arab atrocities, for the most part goes untold and unnoticed...

Sudanese Mother and Child Reunion

A story of Israelis who held no bars to reunite Sudanese refugees with their child who got stuck on the other side of the border when they smuggled across the Israeli--Egyptian border.

The refugees retell how Egyptian border patrol used live ammunition with shoot-to-kill intent on the unarmed refugees as they attempted to flee from Egypt into Israel.



Editorial Commentary
Imagine how left-liberals in the west (Israel included) would have reacted if it were Israelis doing the shooting. But they (i.e. left-liberals), together with the UN and the rest of a so called enlightened-world is for the most part silent to Egypt’s dictatorship, brutality and litany of human rights abuses.

Even though the status of these refugees in Israel remains unclear, the story of Israelis providing shelter for African Moslems, fleeing Arab atrocities, for the most part goes untold and unnoticed.

And in a related item from Ha'aretz:
Sudanese refugees find home with Jerusalem family
By Amiram Barkat
20/07/2007
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/884086.html

The Gal family of Jerusalem has been hosting a family of refugees from Darfur for the past week...The Sudanese, two parents and four children, have settled into the two bedrooms of the Gals' children. Amir, the son, is in summer camp and Lior has moved to her parents' bedroom.

The apartment was filled with the smell of the Egyptian broad beans the guests were cooking in the kitchen yesterday.

Helen Gal says the two families had started sharing their meals and tasting each other's cooking. "They asked me why we don't like spicy food," she says.

...

Helen admits she had fears before the guests arrived. She even advised her daughters what to do if any inappropriate action was taken against them. "I heard they had a boy of 15 and it made me nervous," she explains. But the fears soon dissipated. The guests turned out to be quiet, polite and pleasant people. The 15-year-old boy turned out to be a girl, Amal, who made friends with the Gal's elder daughter Mia, who is a few months older.

Amal was surprised to learn that Mia is still going to school and asked if she could go too if she stayed in Israel. Mia was surprised to discover what had caused the small scar on Amal's forehead. "She told me she had been shot in the head. I asked her how she survived and she said she was in the hospital for months," Mia says.

Abdullah says Amal was shot in 2002 during an attack by the Janjaweed militias on their village. He says the militias set fire to the village and his old father, who could not run away, was burned to death. Abdullah journeyed with the injured Amal to a hospital in Khartoum and stayed with her until she recovered. But then he was warned not to return home and fled with his daughter to Egypt. The rest of the family joined them a year later.

They waited with tens of thousands of other Sudanese refugees in Cairo for an immigration visa to a Western country. Life became quite comfortable once Abdullah, who speaks fluent English, found work in a computer store. But things changed drastically in December 2005 after a demonstration the refugees held outside the offices of the UN's refugee commission.

The Egyptian security forces dispersed the protest violently, killing some 30 refugees in the process, according to Amnesty International. Abdullah said that life in Cairo became intolerable. "There was a terrible fear, at any moment the police could come and put you in jail," he said.

About a month ago Abdullah contacted Bedouin smugglers who agreed to take the family to Israel for $700. Beyond the border they were caught by troops of the Israel Defense Forces who gave them water and blankets. After a short stay in a military camp they were sent to a hotel in Be'er Sheva, and from there arrived at the Wohl Rose Garden in Jerusalem.

The Gal family's full name has been withheld at the family's request. David and Abdullah are fictitious names, used on the instruction of the UN's refugee agency.

For more information, see the Web site of the Israeli Coalition for Darfur and Sudan
Refugees, www.israel-for-darfur.org