The International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem (ICEJ) raised $30,000 in a 24-hour period to aid 37 Sudanese refuges who entered Israel by way of Egypt on June 14. The 10 families, eight of whom are Christians, fled from the genocide and ethnic cleansing campaign of the Khartoum government in Sudan. “These are people who have struggled to get out of the most horrific conditions, and we felt compelled to share the burden with the state of Israel to help them,” ICEJ Executive Director Malcolm Hedding told the Jerusalem Post. Currently ICEJ is providing room, board and medical treatment for refugees for three weeks in Israel, a country that legally defines the refugees as “enemy nationals.” The Sudanese families are now working with ICEJ and various human rights organizations to find homes for their families among the Israeli kibbutzim and moshavim groups. “We escaped from Sudan to Egypt seven years ago. But the Egyptian government threatened to throw us into jail because we are refugees,” said a 30-year-old refugee who fled the Sudan with his pregnant wife and 2-year-old daughter. “We had no choice but to escape once again, to the only democracy in the Middle East, where we knew our human rights will be honored. We cannot go back to Sudan, that would be a certain death sentence for all of us.” The Post reported that roughly 450 people are currently seeking asylum in Israel.
