Some 40,000 asylum seekers, chiefly from Eritrea and Sudan, lived in Israel as of the end of 2016, the government’s Central Bureau of Statistics says in figures released Wednesday.
Most, or 71 percent, are from Eritrea, and another 20% are from Sudan.
Another 169,000 foreign laborers were in the country at year’s end, some 95,000 with work visas and 74,000 with tourist visas, according to the Ynet news site.
The figure marks a drop of some 8-9 percent in both figures over the course of 2016. At the end of 2015, the CBS reports, Israel was home to 43,000 asylum seekers and 183,000 foreign laborers.
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