On October 21, TLV1’s Laragh Widdess was in Levinsky Park in Tel Aviv, the hub of Israel’s community of African asylum seekers, for a heart-breaking event – a memorial for Habtom Zarhum, a 29-year-old Eritrean man who was shot and lynched a few days before in Be’er Sheva Central Bus Station, having been mistaken for a terrorist during an attack.
Laragh spoke to Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers, and the volunteers who work with them, to find out how this tragedy has affected them and how they feel at this time of heightened fear and anxiety across the country.
After suffering hugely in their home countries and on the perilous journey to Israel, afraid of what further horrors deportation might bring (and has brought to some), the vulnerability of this community cannot be overstated. The Israeli government, which calls them “infiltrators,” has failed to protect them, refusing to process their asylum applications, throwing them in detention, and denying them access to social services. Yet here they stood in their hundreds in Levinsky Park, quiet, respectful, and reasonable, holding candles in memory of Habtom Zarhum.
Written and produced by Laragh Widdess
Almost a third of this interview was spent on broadcasting the personal speculations of 2 white American female students visiting Israel? What? Hundreds of Eritians all around her congregating to memorialize the very subject she is reporting on- and she adds only a few soundbites from a few and the wailing of a woman in the background. Lousy, lazy reporting Laragh Widdess.