JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israel's interior minister on Wednesday said he supported naturalising hundreds of refugees from Sudan's war-torn region of Darfur who had illegally entered the country in recent years.
"As a Jewish state we have the moral obligation to take them in," Meir Sheetrit said in an interview to AFP.
"I support that, in coordination with the United Nations, we decide on a quota of several hundred refugees who will be given full nationality and rights identical to those given to Jewish immigrants," he said.
The Jewish state, which is used to annually absorbing thousands of Jewish immigrants, has been struggling to find a solution for over 500 Darfur refugees who have illegally crossed into Israel from the Sinai desert in Egypt in recent years seeking asylum.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert last June promised to absorb some Darfur refugees but said Israel would expel thousands of other African refugees who entered Israel mainly seeking employment.
Sheetrit said he "believed Olmert and the ministers will accept my proposal" which would be "Israel's contribution to the problem in a hope that other countries will do the same thing."
The UN estimates that some 200,000 people have been killed in the strife-torn Sudanese region since conflict broke out between government and rebel forces in 2003, with a further two million people forced to flee their homes.
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