No African migrants entered Israel in August, while 168 migrants from Sudan or Eritrea left the country voluntarily, the Interior Ministry said on Sunday.
Last week, the government announced that Uganda has agreed to absorb or serve as a temporary transfer point for African migrants who have left Israel, who will be voluntarily resettled at the expense of the Jewish state.
According to statistics from the ministry’s Population and Immigration Authority, there are some 55,000 African migrants in Israel, 90% of them from Eritrea and Sudan.
Israel has been searching for ways to deal with the African migrant community, although the influx has slowed since it constructed a fence on the southern border with Egypt. The presence of thousands of African migrants has led to tensions in southern Tel Aviv, where many reside, including a violent protest in May 2012 that saw a mob vandalize Africans’ stores and smash the windows of a car with African passengers.
Residents of the working-class Tel Aviv neighborhoods in the city’s south regularly complain of street crime as a result of the migrant influx, including two rape incidents in the weeks before last year’s protests.
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