He will welcome you into his earthen-floor home, introduce you to his three wives, and let you sample their cooking. But Dougoutigo Fadiga does not want foreigners to come near the sacred tree of his village deep in the Senegalese bush. “The tree is holy grounds,” says Fadiga, president of this remote settlement of 4,000…
Struggling to be heard over a flock of bleating sheep, Israel’s ambassador to Senegal invited a crowd of impoverished Muslims to help themselves to some 100 sacrificial animals that the embassy had corralled at a dusty community center. That event, which was broadcast last October on national television and takes place every year to mark…
Tel Aviv municipal inspectors, along with a large contingent of police, raided illegal businesses run by African migrants in the Neve Sha’anan neighborhood. The inspectors closed down about 10 businesses in the south Tel Aviv neighborhood, implementing both court orders and administrative closure orders. They confiscated equipment from restaurants, cafes, bars and kiosks. They took…
More than 300 African migrants refused to return to their cells in an Israeli detention center this weekend, saying they are being held illegally and demanding release. The 340 detainees – mostly from Sudan and Eritrea – barricaded themselves in the yard of the Saharonim detention center in the south of Israel this weekend. A…
Meet Omer Olivier. Mr. Olivier is an asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of Congo. He has been living in Israel for the last seventeen years without official status. Although he has filed a request to be recognized as a refugee, his lack of recognized status means he cannot work legally nor get medical services….
Descendants of Jews from Cape Verde plan to rededicate a burial plot in the West African island state next week, largely thanks to funding by the king of Morocco. The rededication ceremony is scheduled to take place in Praia, the capital, on May 2 and is expected to be attended by a small group of…
Africa’s oldest synagogue is playing host to that rarity in the Arab world – a religious gathering of hundreds of Jews drawn from Europe and Israel. Guarded by armed Tunisian police, Jewish revellers chant and dance in a three-day pilgrimage to the El Ghriba synagogue at an island resort 500 km south of Tunis. In…
The U.S. State Department in its latest human rights report elevated its criticism of Israel’s treatment of African refugees. The report for 2012, issued April 19, said “the treatment of refugees, asylum seekers, and irregular migrants” was a “most significant” human rights problem. That was added to the three areas singled out by the department…
