After deadly Eritrean brawl, minister seeks to boost efforts to encourage voluntary repatriation

Negev, Galilee and National Resilience Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf offers NIS 5 million ($1.3 million) from his ministry’s own budget to a government unit which assists in the voluntary repatriation of foreign nationals after two men were killed and five others injured in a massive street brawl, apparently between pro-regime and anti-regime Eritrean migrants, in south Tel Aviv this morning.

In a statement, the far-right minister’s office says that Wasserlauf demands that the cabinet immediately debate a framework for transferring additional funds to the Population and Immigration Authority’s Assisted Voluntary Return Department and “appealed to all government ministers to allocate resources for this purpose.”

Clashes between the two groups are not unusual. In May, a man was stabbed to death in a similar incident in south Tel Aviv, while last September, at least 170 people were hurt — including police officers — in major clashes in the city.

Various Israeli governments have taken a series of measures — some of which were blocked by the courts — to encourage the migrants, many of whom are seeking asylum due to war and oppression in their home country, to leave. There are roughly 20,000 Eritreans who are living in Israel, after entering illegally before the completion of a barrier along the Egyptian border in 2012.