Ethiopia's Connection To Israel

 Nadene Goldfoot                                          

Ethiopia and Israel share a deep, 3,000-year historical connection that forms the foundation of a strong diplomatic, economic, and strategic alliance. Their contemporary relationship is primarily shaped by several key factors: 

Economic & Agricultural Cooperation: Bilateral ties are bolstered by extensive economic cooperation. Israel provides critical expertise and technology transfers to Ethiopia, focusing heavily on modern agricultural practices, water management, and irrigation projects. Through initiatives like the Israel Export Institute, Israel is promoting bilateral trade and investment. Israeli companies are increasingly exploring opportunities in Ethiopia’s newly opened finance, telecom, and agriculture sectors.

•  Israel is outwardly supporting Ethiopia’s peaceful pursuit of access to a seaport, recognizing Ethiopia's strategic importance in Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb trade routes.

 Masru Teferi, born in 1992, part of the Beta Israelis;  won a gold medal in the 2022 European Marathon Cup, and the gold medal at the 2022 Fukuoka Marathon.   He immigrated to Israel at the age of 14 in 2006 along with most of his family.

Gashau Ayale won gold for Israel's team at the 2025 European Athletics Championships and has been a top finisher in elite international races.  Ayale immigrated to Israel in 2010, at 13 years of age, with his parents and five brothers. They initially lived in an absorption center in Safed, Israel, and then later the family moved to Jaffa, Israel.

Ethiopians started to come to Safed when I lived there from 1980-1985. They created the Beta Israel Community: The cornerstone of their modern bond is the Beta Israel, a community of over 175,000 Ethiopian Jews living in Israel. Brought over in historic airlifts in the 1980s and 1990s (such as Operations Moses and Solomon), this diaspora serves as a vital cultural and familial bridge between the two nations. Operation Moses was an emergency airlift in 1984 that rescued thousands of Ethiopian Jews (Beta Israel) who were facing devastating famine, civil war, and religious persecution in Ethiopia for being Jewish.

Civil Unrest & Violence: Ethiopia was embroiled in a violent civil war. The Jewish community faced targeted attacks, looting, and persecution from brutal militias.

Religious Persecution: The Ethiopian government strictly forbade the practice of Judaism, and thousands of Jews were killed or arrested.  

Security & Strategic Ties: Both countries collaborate heavily on security and intelligence, particularly regarding shared regional threats like terrorism and the geopolitical dynamics surrounding the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea. Israel has historically been one of Ethiopia's reliable suppliers of military and strategic assistance.

Historical & Religious Ties: The connection between the two nations predates the modern era, traditionally linked to the legendary journey of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon. The two nations officially re-established diplomatic ties in 1989, and both maintain active embassies in each other's capitals (Addis Ababa and Tel Aviv)                                            
Israel has done a miracle!  They rescued as many Ethiopian Jews as they could and brought them to Israel to live in safety.  They also made good contacts with Ethiopia itself with the government through diaspora connections: The Ethiopian Jewish diaspora in Israel has played a role in maintaining cultural and familial ties between the two countries. The Ethiopian community in Israel has faced unique challenges, and efforts have been made to address issues of integration and cultural preservation.

Meanwhile, Ethiopia says that on the Palestinian side: we recognize Palestine and have expressed solidarity with the Palestinian cause at times. This solidarity often stems from shared experiences of anti-colonial struggles and the pursuit of self-determination. Basically, we're just following the other Africans.  

Yes, Ethiopia sometimes backs Israel in UN votes, though its historical stance has been more aligned with the broader African and Non-Aligned Movement voting blocs, which traditionally favor Palestinian statehood. Ethiopia's UN voting record leans heavily against or abstains on anti-Israel resolutions, but its diplomatic actions indicate a complex relationship.

Ethiopian Jews are very religious and messianic. They regard their rescue and arrival in Israel as the very fulfillment of their redemptive vision. Their primary identity is Jewish, not Ethiopian or African. As a result they are very vulnerable to the pressures of assimilation. "Ethiopian Jews are highly motivated to integrate into Israeli society," says Jeffery Halper, an anthropologist from Hebrew University who has worked with the Ethiopians since 1966. They want complete assimilation. They don't want to reconstitute themselves as a community here."


Ethiopia has a rich history of Olympic and World Championship gold medalists, headlined by legendary long-distance runners. Notable champions include: 
• Abebe Bikila: The first black African Olympic gold medalist and a back-to-back champion, winning the 1960 marathon barefoot and the 1964 marathon.
• Haile Gebrselassie: An iconic distance runner who won consecutive gold medals in the 10,000 meters in 1996 and 2000.
• Kenenisa Bekele: A three-time Olympic gold medalist, sweeping the 5,000m and 10,000m events across the 2004 and 2008 Games.
• Tirunesh Dibaba: Part of the famous Dibaba running family, she is a three-time Olympic gold medalist on the track (5,000m and 10,000m).
• Tamirat Tola: Secured gold and set a new Olympic record in the men's marathon

Resource:
https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/ethiopian-jews-israel?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=1442219742&gbraid=0AAAAAD9zhqxVOTrgxkQ834Pds8FljTA3l&gclid=Cj0KCQjw_b_QBhCSARIsAP6hR4cNXHTrPa2zizcnY9h1pv-b97

https://embassies.gov.il/ethiopia/en/the-embassy/bilateral-relations
https://www.reddit.com/r/Ethiopia/comments/17aszbq/why_are_ethiopians_overwhelmingly_supporting/

Jews in Somalia and Ethiopia: Africa's History

 Nadene Goldfoot                                             

                            Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, president of the transitional government of Somalia

I note that Mr. Ahmed has the same fine features of recent Ethiopian immigrants, also a beautiful people,  into Israel that I had seen.                                         

Somalia is next door to Ethiopia on the East.  It has a huge strip of lovely beaches.  

I was surprised to find that a few of our Jewish ancestors  made it to Somalia.  The history of Jewish communities in Somalia is a subject of debate, but there is evidence that Jews have lived in the country at various times:  A small number of Jews, perhaps 100–200, settled in coastal towns as traders. The Yibir, a tribe of Jewish origin who became a low caste in Somali society. say they are descended from Hebrews who arrived before Somali nomads. The majority of Yibir practice Islam, but their Hebrew origins may explain their lower status in Somali society.                                       

 A friend in Israel when I wrote to him, orthodox, a lawyer, traveled from Africa to Israel to do his milueem, later moved family to Israel, and my favorite picture.  He may have come from Kenya, can't remember.  I do remember that he had a DNA test, showing J1, I believe; a well-known and common Jewish and Arab line.  

While there is limited evidence of any Somali clans embracing Judaism during the pre-Islamic era, the conversion , possibly due to marriage, of individuals and families cannot be ruled out. The Hebrew heritage of marginalized Somali clans, including the Yibir, can be traced back to the Beta Israel, or Ethiopian Jews.

Somalia was likely one of the first lands to be settled by early humans due to its location. Hunter-gatherers who would later migrate out of Africa likely settled here before their migrations. During the Stone Age, the Doian and Hargeisan cultures flourished here. The oldest evidence of burial customs in the Horn of Africa comes from cemeteries in Somalia dating back to the 4th millennium BCE.

• The book,  The Last Two Jews of Mogadishu,  tells the story of a crypto-Jewish community in Mogadishu. The book is based on email correspondence with a young man and his mother, both of whom were born and raised in Somalia. Their families had lived in Somalia for over 100 years.  Somalia is a predominantly Muslim country, with over 99% of the population identifying as Sunni Muslim. Christians in Somalia have faced persecution and death due to the ongoing civil war in the south.

A young Muslim  Somalian lady works in the assisted living home I live in now.  She is able to wear her long clothing and head is covered with a scarf, and she has the most   beautiful face. As an artist that has done many portraits, I am awed.    She speaks English quite well, and gives me a hug every time.  Here I am writing about all the Muslim terrorists and I'm overwhelmed by her kindness and vibes that I feel from her;  kindness, and love her hugs.  I don't think she knows I'm Jewish, but I do keep a very Jewish-looking apartment full of pictures, etc. with a star of David in the window.  I do wish others would have such an encounter.  Maybe it's our female hormones that draw us together instead of keeping us apart.  When I first saw her, I was quite alarmed, but not anymore.  

                             Our enemies today, terrorists with Nazis, as of WWII

Now with today's news (11/18/2024)  that Columbus, Ohio sported a Nazi group that was practicing their freedom of speech but not harming anyone, keeping themselves free from being arrested, it's time that minority groups like Miss B and myself stick together !  Blacks and Jews, anti-Semitism has risen to the Nazi level now.  How awful, and I just became a great grandmother.  What is our future to become?  Miss B's parents may have reached the US hoping for safety from war, but she has problems to face, too.  

I had the same feeling living in Eastern Oregon's Ontario, OR, of being the only Jew in the area and how hard it was to be Jewish.  Here is a report as told in the Jerusalem Post about such a family in Somalia.  

It was from a young Jewish man and his inspiring mother, Ashira Haybi. They were alone without family, with roots extending back well over one hundred years. Rami’s dad, killed during the civil war, traced his roots to Aden, Yemen, while his mom traced hers to Ta’iz, also in Yemen. Ashira was an accomplished businesswoman trading in textiles. She kept a kosher home, was Shabbat observant and raised Rami to continue the tradition. They fought vigorously to preserve their Judaism under extreme duress.  This mother was special in her determination not to let her son forget who he was.  No doubt she came from just such a home in Yemen.  

I was living in Israel from 1980 to Thanksgiving's November 1985 when we saw the new Ethiopian immigrants move into apartments across the street from our David Eleazar Street in Safed, Israel.  In the 1980s and 1990s, a large portion of the Ethiopian Jewish community was airlifted to Israel in response to the Ethiopian Civil War and famine. This operation, known as Operation Solomon, involved 34 Israeli planes that made 40 flights over 36 hours, airlifting more than 14,000 Ethiopian Jews to   Israel.                   

The Queen of Sheba was said to have been from Ethiopia, and she arrived, 

meeting  King Solomon, who fathered her son.  According to Jewish traveler, Eldad ha-Dani, the Tribe of Dan established their own kingdom in Ethiopia, "They went by way of Egypt further down the upper Nile River and settled in Ethiopia, in East Africa. The Danites were great warriors, and after fighting many battles against native tribes, they established themselves securely, with a kingdom of their own." Marco Polo and Benjamin of Tudela also mention the existence of an Ethiopian Jewish community.

The Ethiopians came with illnesses picked up in Africa so spent their first weeks in 

hospitals till better.  We had lots of apartments in Safed empty, so many moved here,

and I saw that they soon picked up our shopping habits.  They had an art show, where 

we saw their talents.  Many waited in Ethiopia for their turn to come, and have arrived. 

                                                                   

Mola is at Brandeis this academic year, analyzing oral histories of Ethiopian Israeli women.

A few years ago there are approximately 12,000 Ethiopian Jews remaining in Ethiopia, and around 160,500 in Israel.  As of September 2023, there are about 168,800 people of Ethiopian descent living in Israel, which is about 2% of the country's total population. This community is known as Beta Israel, which translates to "House of Israel" in Hebrew.  Many Ethiopian Jews have been the same social problems in Israel as Blacks have had in the USA.  

Update: 11/19/2024:  

• Somaliland's claim to independence: Somaliland declared independence from Somalia in 1991 but has not received international recognition for its sovereignty. 
• Self-governance: Despite not being recognized internationally, Somaliland functions as a self-governing region with its own government, currency, and elections. 
• International perspective: The international community considers Somaliland to be part of Somalia.

Resource:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somalia

https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/18/us/columbus-ohio-neo-nazi-march-hnk/index.html

https://www.brandeis.edu/jewish-experience/israel-middle-east/2023/january/ethiopia-israel-mola.html#:~:text=Today%2C%20there%20are%20some%20160%2C000,House%20of%20Israel%20in%20Hebrew.

Update:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somaliland#:~:text=The%20union%20of%20the%20two,and%20unrecognised%20or%20occupied%20territories.

• 
  

The Jewish Connection With North Africa

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                                   

Ptolemy VI Philometor, Pharaoh-
Egypt under the control of Ptolemy VIII 164 BCE–163 BCE; Ptolemy VI restored 163 BCE

Our Jewish history connects to Africa since biblical days. "By the time of the last pharaoh, the well-known Cleopatra VII Philopator of the Ptolemaic Dynasty  no longer held the power it once did.   Fewer monuments were erected and, with her death in 30 BCE, Egypt became a Roman province and the glory and might of the pharaohs of old faded into memory. She was a pharaoh.
                                                                           

Cleopatra

Cleopatra, portrayed by Elizabeth Taylor. 

There probably were Jews serving in the military of the last Pharaohs.  At the time of the destruction of the First Temple of Solomon in 586 BCE by the Babylonians, many Jewish  fugitives went back to Egypt seeking refuge.                                                      

586 BCE, Destruction by Babylonians of the Temple

 Many records illustrate the life of the Jewish military colony at Yeb in the 5th century BCE.  This was probably not a unique situation.
                                                                           

Alexander the Great (336-323 BCE) -statue in Istanbul
Young king of Macedonia, made a deep impression on the Jews.  

Then Egypt was conquered by the Greeks, and the Jewish element increased quickly.  Alexander the Great and his successors introduced Jewish settlers into their new cities.  This is how Alexandria became a set of Jewish life and its civilization.
                                                                               

From Egypt, Jewish settlements spread west along the Mediterranean Sea.  By the 2nd century BCE, there was an important colony in Cyrene.  They have found many inscriptions and literary monuments that shows Jews lived there during the Roman period nearly as far west as the Straits of Gibraltar. Egyptian Jews were so strong that they were able to revolt after 70 CE when Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed by the Romans.  The Jews of Cyrene took control of the whole province in 115.

As Christianity grew in Egypt, the rivalry between Christian and Jew developed.  The Patriarch Cyril led many persecutions against Jews in the 4th century.  This was the cause of the end of Alexandrian Jewry.

Farther west, the Vandal invaders introduced a kinder policy towards Jews in the 5th century. Then the Christian Byzantine reconquered the land under Belisarius 100 years later who undid the horrible anti Jewish policies.
                                                                   

Ethiopian Jewish IDF soldier

A tradition developed at this time of the presence of many independent or semi-independent tribes saying that they were Jews.  The Jews of Ethiopia belong to this group.  Their story is that they came from the Queen of Sheba and her union with King Solomon when she went to visit him.

In the 7th century, North Africa experienced a great revival  after the Moslem invasion.   The Jewish communities became completely Arabicized in the language of Arabic, customs and social habits.  Egypt had a new city, Cairo, and it against became the seat of an important settlement.
                                                                           

Tunisia-between Algeria and Libya on the sea.
When under Spanish rule (1535-1574), many Jews were killed or were sold into slavery.  
When under French protection in 1881, Jews were permitted French citizenship in 1910.  By 1990, only 2,500 Jews left. Many Jews had emigrated to France and Israel.    

Farther West was the city of Kairouan, which was near Tunis-between Algeria and Libya.  Jews settled here after its foundation in the 7th century which became a great center of Jewish learning. The community decayed after the 12th century and until the late 19th century, no Jew was allowed to live in the city.  None lives there now.   Eldad Ha-Dani had appeared in about 883. He was a late 9th century traveler whose origins and personality still remain a riddle.  He claimed to belong to the tribe of Dan.  In 880-5, he visited Jewish communities in N. Africa and Spain and told them fantastic accounts of the 10 Tribes. He was living as a nomad.    We believe there were Jewish tribes found inland.

In the middle of the 12th century, the Almohades censored open practice of Judaism in Morocco and in neighboring territories.  This was persecution and caused the migration of Jews to go east back to Egypt.  Finally, the almohades lost their power and Jewish life in North Africa revived.
                                                                         

Jews of Morocco

In 1391, there was a persecution program going on against the Jews and this led to an emigration across the Straits and introduced a new Jewish element of a higher talmudic culture.  Then in 1492, when Columbus sailed the ocean blue, the Spanish King said Jews had to convert to Catholicism or leave the country.  They faced death if they did not.  This was strictly enforced everywhere, but especially in Morocco we see it was handled a little differently.  .  There the Jews were confined to their own quarter (Melelah), compelled to wear black clothing, made to pay heavy taxes, and treated very badly with swearing and other acts showing they were more like 3rd class citizens; trash.  They were excluded from several Holy Cities like Kairouan, and often gangs tried to massacre Jews.  Generally, they were just tolerated.

Finally, during the 19th century arrived and nothing had changed in the treatment of Jews.  Now the lot of Jews in Ethiopia had deteriorated.  So relations between them and the Jews of Europe opened up.  This brought security and emancipation for the time being, until the Fascist regime came to power.  This led to serious acts in Tripoli even before Italy officially adopted anti-Semitism in 1938 under Hitler's power.  Later, they adopted a policy of systematic discrimination.  Territories under the French imitated this policy after the Franco-German armistice of 1940 when any thought of previous emancipation for Jews was then nullified.
                                                                               

After the German armies occupied North Africa in 1941-1943, there was the persecution against Jews as it was happening in Germany itself.  Persecutions, forced levies, outbreaks of violence were happening everywhere from Tripoli westward.  When the Germans were defeated, the anti-Semitism slackened.  Jews and Moslems were now not getting along.
               
After 1948, the Jews of North Africa left in large numbers, mostly for Israel or France with some going to Canada.  Few Jews remained in Algeria since 1962, while the Libyan community had been liquidated since the Six-Day War of 1967, and very few stayed in Egypt.  Almost all the Ethiopian Jews were taken to Israel in the 1980s and early 1990s.  I was living in Safed at the time and saw the Ethiopian situated there.  We all lived in high-rise apartment buildings.  Safed was cold in the winter, hot in the summer.  At another period, Russian Jews were relocated on the desert.  It was too bad that the two groups could not change places, but it all depended on what housing was available at that time.
                                                                                 

Miss Israel 2014; An 18-year-old resident of Beersheva, Mor Maman, Moroccan. 

By 1990, only 13,500 Jews lived in North Africa and 10,000 of them were in Morocco, where they spoke French.  I was teaching English in the junior high in Safed from 1981-to the end of 19185.  The beautiful lady in charge of our English Department was from Morocco.  She also taught French, so was tri-lingual.  

Update: 3/13/16, 9:41 am Pacific Time:  Israel is coming back to Africa, and Africa is returning to Israel.  Prime Minister Netanyahu said this on February 23rd in welcoming visiting Kenyan President, Uhuru Kenyatta, who arrived for a 3-day state visits, the first by a Kenyan president since 1994. ( from  magazine-The Jerusalem Report, March 21, 2016 issue page 3). 

Resource: The New Standard Jewish encyclopedia
http://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/alexander-the-great

Illegal Africans Streaming Into Israel, the Land NY Times Bashes Over All Middle East States

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                          

Even though the NY Times has spent their latest comments bashing Israel, there have been people flooding into this tiny 8,000 square mile country of Israel fleeing from their war torn African nations such as the Eritrea and Sudan.  Nobody bothered to tell them that Israel was  probably ready to collapse or their chances of survival was worse than all the other 22 neighbor states of Israel.  Why didn't they seek refuge in Egypt?  
                                                                         

They knew Israel was a country of freedom and democracy and snuck into the country starting in the middle 2000's.  They came as undocumented workers and entered illegally through the fenced border between Israel and Egypt.  26,635 came in 2010.  By 2012 the number was 55,000. For 30 years the Eritreans had fought for their independence from Ethiopia from 1961 to 1991. There had been war between Eritrea and Ethiopia from May 1998 to June 2000.  Over 150,000 Eritreans had been killed.  69% of Eritreans are Sunni Muslims.  

Eritrea, a country on the Red Sea with ancient connections to Egypt, has  about a 6 million population.  They belong to the African Union, UN, IGAD and have observer status in the Arab League.  A neighbor state is Sudan which has 43,939,598 people of which 70% are Sunni Muslims.                                                        

"Many of the undocumented workers seek an asylum status under the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees of the United Nations. Only a fraction of all the undocumented workers is actually eligible for this status.  However, many of them, mostly citizens of Eritrea and Sudan, cannot be forcibly deported from Israel. The Eritrea citizens (who, since 2009, form the majority of the undocumented workers in Israel) cannot be deported due to the opinion of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees that Eritrea has a difficult internal situation and a forced recruitment and therefore the Eritrean immigrants are defined as a "temporary humanitarian protection group". Despite the fact that a similar opinion does not exist in relation to citizens of Sudan, Israel does not deport them back to Egypt due to a real fear for their fate."  (Wikipedia)

Since the onset of the conflict in 2003, an estimated 400,000 ethnic Africans have been killed, over 3,200 African villages have been destroyed, and 2.4 million people have been displaced. There are also over four million Sudanese reliant on humanitarian aid.

 Israel passed a law last year  that allowed police to jail refugees and undocumented migrants for as long as 3 years without a trial in the attempt to crack down on this flood  of illegals. However, Israel's 9 Judges in the Supreme Court tossed this law out on Monday because it violated human rights.  There are about 2,000 that are presently being  held in detention facilities.  In fact, this law was violating Israel's own laws.  Those that had been for it pointed out that it had quickly reduced the number of refugees and migrants entering Israel through the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt.  There had only been 34 who entered in 2013 compared with 9,570 in 2012.  

When African refugees first came into Israel, they were unemployed and turned the Tel Aviv beach areas into high crime spots.  The teenagers formed gangs and stole the belongings of bathers for starters.  This is no doubt how many wound up in jails.  

This year Israel began deporting Eritrean refugees from the jails back to their homeland.  They really would rather stay in jail instead of returning.  Israel had become the home to one of the largest Eritrean communities in the world.  

The UNHCR (UN Refugee Agency) has their hands full of all the African wars going on that are causing refugee problems.  "UNHCR operations in the sub-region have seen a significant increase in their financial requirements over the last five years, mainly due to a rise in the number of emergency refugee situations, including the Somali influx and the surge in the number of Sudanese crossing into Ethiopia and South Sudan. UNHCR's budgetary requirements to protect and assist people of concern in the East and Horn of Africa region in 2013 will amount to about USD 1.13 billion."  "The biggest operation in the region remained the response to the Somali emergency, followed closely by the Sudanese refugee situation." 

Sharon Harel is the assistant protection officer for the UNHCR in Tel Aviv,  She explained that 90% of the Eritreans are men between age 22-40 who are fleeing indefinite compulsory military duty in their country.  8,5000 refugees come from Eritrea and between 5,000 to 6,000 are from Sudan.  They had to face much danger to get to Israel.  

Israel is doing the right thing, brought about by their own democratic system even though it is causing them greater problems.  They 'll work it out.  The point is that this is a Jewish state and Judaism is based on laws of morality.  That's what it's all about;   doing the righteous thing which is the moral thing. 

The NY Times, however, did not do the right thing in their Sunday criticism of Israel when they could have zeroed in on the hot spots in the Middle East such as Syria, or the fate of Christians in the Muslim Middle East, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia or Iraq.  Instead their Sunday Review story was about the 2-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians.  The parties involved have given themselves 9 months to talk, yet Israel is under a daily threat of chemical attacks from Syria and atomic bombings from Iran who is working overtime to create their dastardly weapons of destruction.  Well, folks, this is how newspapers go under, which many are doing right now.  Even the Oregonian has to pull back and cannot publish a newspaper daily starting next month.  

It is a sad state of affairs when a major newspaper thinks that people will only read their paper if they join the crowd and bash Israel, or that the name "Israel" is something people will read about-if it is criticism.  Most people can't even find "Syria" on the map or have no interest in what happens there or how many are killed by chemical warfare, words alien to them.  

Maybe newspapers need to revive the Newsboy who stood on the corner yelling, "Extra, extra, read all about it! ....1,000 children die in agonizing death spasms from chemical Sarin gas attack in Syria!"  

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eritrea
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/UNHCR-Eritreans-by-far-largest-refugee-group-in-Israel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_from_Africa_to_Israel
Oregonian Newspaper 9/17/13 page A6,  Israel voids law on holding refugees, Los Angeles Times
http://www.english.rfi.fr/middle-east/20130401-extraordinary-eritreans-support-centre-eritreans-israel
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4430962,00.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ex6lB86dxK8
http://www.populstat.info/Africa/eritreag.htm
http://www.nationmaster.com/country/er-eritrea/rel-religion
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/israel-police-unemployed-african-refugees-turning-tel-aviv-beaches-into-high-crime-spots-1.427634
http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home