JERUSALEM — Israel, for the first time, has granted refugee status to a Sudanese asylum seeker from Darfur.
Population and Immigration Authority spokeswoman Sabine Haddad said Darfur-born Mutasim Ali was the first national of Sudan — an enemy state of Israel — to gain temporary residency according to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention.
Ali says regime forces burned down his family’s village in Darfur. He fled Sudan after he was arrested and tortured for activism, and crossed Egypt before slipping across the Israeli border in 2009.
Ali applied for refugee status in 2012 and endured 14 months in a desert detention facility in Israel before winning release in the Supreme Court.
About 40,000 Sudanese and Eritreans migrants are in Israel, Haddad said Thursday.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition
by email and never miss our top stories
By signing up, you agree to the
terms
She said the decision applies only to Ali.
Help us report truthfully on social media
As a multimedia journalist, my job is to take the quality, fact-based journalism produced by The Times of Israel newsroom and make it accessible across every platform — from Instagram posts to podcasts to short-form videos.
This is how many, especially young people, consume news these days. But misinformation is rampant on social media. Our team at ToI produces accurate, responsible short-form reporting on Israel and the Jewish world.
If you believe in the importance of factual social media journalism, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to sustain responsible multimedia reporting.
— Gabriella Jacobs, multimedia journalist
Support our work
Support our work
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
You're a dedicated reader
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you,
David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
Join Our Community
Join Our Community
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on Google
