Illegal aliens sent home
Illegal aliens sent homeFlash 90

Six youths who infiltrated into Israel from Ethiopia and Eritrea escaped on Friday from a holding facility, located near the police station in Hadera, where they had been kept. Channel 10 News reported that police and Prison Service officers began searching for the six in the vicinity and that two have already been found.

The six, aged between 14 and 18, escaped from the Matan facility near Hadea. A preliminary investigation of the incident found they had broken down the bars in their room, climbed on the roof and then jumped out of the compound.

A spokeswoman with the Israeli Prison Service told Channel 10 two of the boys had been found near the facility. Police are continuing to search for the remaining four boys. In the meantime, it was decided to transfer the rest of the boys in the facility in to the Givon facility in the city of Ramle.

The Matan facility opened in 2010 for youths aged 13 to 18 who arrive in Israel without their parents. Most of the boys who stay at the facility came from Sudan and Eritrea. The boys remain at the facility for several months and are then transferred to other frameworks.

In recent years the State of Israel has been dealing with a wave of infiltrators from Africa. The infiltrators come in through the non-hermetically sealed border with Egypt. A figure released last month said that there had been about 60,000 infiltrators in Israel.

Israel recently launched an operation dubbed “Going Home”, which combines a police crackdown with financial incentives for illegal infiltrators who leave by choice. Interior Minister Eli Yishai has instructed the Department of Immigration and Population to begin repatriating illegal alien infiltrators from the Ivory Coast.

Official statistics released on July 28 showed that illegal infiltration into Israel through Sinai has plummeted sharply in last two months.

The number of illegal immigrants who crossed the border up to that point in July was 244. In June, the number of infiltrators was 928. In May it was 2,031. This means the rate of infiltration has dropped by over 85% in two months.

Unlike previous months, all of the immigrants crossing the border illegally have been arrested and detained. Before the government changed its policy on infiltration, the infiltrators were escorted by the IDF from the border and then put on buses to Tel Aviv, where they were released.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American Desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)