‘Living risk to risk’: the new wave of African migrants deported from Israel

‘Robel Tesfahannes spends his days looking for work in Juba. An Eritrean who recently arrived in South Sudan after six years in Tel Aviv, Tesfahannes is one of a new wave of refugees forced out of Israel by the country’s increasingly tough stance towards migrants.

He is covered in tattoos, including a message on his right arm to Israelis: “I hate them but I can’t live without them.” Tesfahannes says that with “no money I have no aims. But you have to keep moving, always. I live risk to risk.”

Tesfahannes left Eritrea in 2008, fleeing mandatory military service in a regime that tolerates no dissent, and travelled through Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt before arriving in Israel. He says he was briefly imprisoned before being released into the community.’

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