Africans paint their faces white in Israel to stop deportation

Israel stayed true to its promise of arresting and expelling African migrants last week, after it detained 7 Eritreans who refused to be deported to Rwanda.

To protest the deportation, inmates at the Holot prison in the Negev desert, first embarked on a hunger strike. African migrants also went out into the streets, painted their faces white, suggesting they were being sent into danger because Israel didn’t believe their black lives mattered.

The current deportation plan threatens to remove thousands of Africans, many of them from Sudan and Eritrea. The government has proposed giving each migrant $3,500 to leave, with the option of going home or to a third country.

If they don’t leave by end of March, migrants face indefinite incarceration.