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.
Is our live war coverage important to you?
Are you relying on The Times of Israel for accurate and timely coverage of the Israel-Iran conflict right now? If so, please join The Times of Israel Community. For as little as $6/month, you will:
Join the Times of Israel Community
Join our Community
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
You appreciate our wartime journalism
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
You clearly find our careful reporting valuable during the ongoing Israel-Iran war, when facts are often distorted and news coverage often lacks context.
Your support is essential to continue our work. We want to continue delivering the professional journalism you value, even as the demands on our newsroom have grown dramatically since October 7.
So today, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. For as little as $6 a month you'll become our partners 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