UGANDA CONSIDERING

ISRAELI REQUEST TO TAKE

AFRICAN MIGRANTS,
MINISTER SAYS
In January, Israel started handing out notices to male migrants from
Eritrea and Sudan giving them three months to take the voluntary deal
with a plane ticket and $3,500 or risk being thrown in jail.

Uganda is considering a request from Israel to take in 500 migrants from

Eritrea and Sudan, a minister said on Friday, the first time the East African
nation has acknowledged it is in talks over such a deal.

"The State of Israel working with other refugees' managing organizations has
requested Uganda to allow about 500 Eritreans and Sudanese to relocate to
Uganda. The government and ministry are positively considering the
request," Musa Ecweru, Minister of State for Relief, Disaster Preparedness
and Refugees, said in a statement. About 4,000 migrants have left Israel for
Rwanda and Uganda since 2013 under a voluntary program but Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come under pressure from his right-wing
voter base to expel thousands more. In January, Israel started handing out
notices to male migrants from Eritrea and Sudan giving them three months to
take the voluntary deal with a plane ticket and $3,500 or risk being thrown in
jail.
The government said from April it would start forced deportations but rights
groups challenged the move and Israel's Supreme Court has issued a
temporary injunction to give more time for the petitioners to argue against the
plan.Government representatives told the court earlier this week that an
envoy was in an African country finalising a deportation deal after an
arrangement with Rwanda to take migrants expelled under the new measures
fell through. Until Friday's statement, Ugandan officials had denied to
Reuters that their government was in talks with Israel to resettle migrants.
Ecweru said "all refugees world over" should be "voluntarily repatriated with
strict observance and adherence to international law", but did not give further
details on the possible deal.
UNHCR URGES NETANYAHU TO
RECONSIDER MIGRANTS
AGREEMENT
Since 2005 a total of 64,000 Africans have entered Israel illegally over its
border with Egypt.

the UN refugee agency on Tuesday called for Prime Minister Benjamin

Netanyahu to reconsider implementing the migrants deal signed by the
government and the agency on Monday, before he canceled it the next day.
“It is with disappointment that UNHCR notes today’s cancellation by Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the Israel-UNHCR Agreement of 2nd April
on solutions for Eritreans and Sudanese currently in Israel,” the Office of the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, headed by High
Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, said.
“The agreement was the result of discussions over an extended period of
time, and reflected a shared effort to find a solution that gave international
protection to people arriving in Israel fleeing war or persecution while also
meeting the concerns of Israeli host communities,” it continued.

The agency noted that it sees the agreement as a “win-win” that would
benefit both Israel and asylum-seekers.

Hospitals in crisis in Uganda as Middle

Eastern countries poach medical staff
Recruitment of almost 2,000 health workers to Libya has led to
urgent calls for government to stop exodus amid dire staffing
shortages

The failure to stop a brain drain of almost 2,000 of its best doctors and nurses is
exacerbating Uganda’s healthcare crisis, reflecting a growing problem across
east Africa, say healthcare workers. At least 1,963 medics are being recruited to
work at one hospital alone in Libya, as Middle Eastern countries turn to the
region for highly qualified workers to fill their own vacancies, which have
increased amid political instability and migration. Nurses, laboratory technicians
and doctors in different fields are being recruited from public health facilities,
private hospitals and the not-for-profit sector, with no clear government plan to
mitigate the impact on the domestic health sector, medical workers say. “This one
[Libyan] deal, if executed, will worsen the shortage of health workers,
undermining service delivery and the investment by donors to the health sector,”
said a statement from the Uganda Civil Society HIV Prevention Advocacy
Coalition.

The coalition, a group of workers and patients, wants a temporary halt to

recruitment, to allow urgent discussions at government level. “This deal will
make the health crisis worse in Uganda – actively facilitating export of critical
cadres of health workers will accelerate suffering and death,” said Asia Russell,
executive director of the Health Global Access Project (Health Gap). “The
government is refusing to increase production, retention and motivation of
health workers in order to save lives.”Dona Anyona, of the health system
advocacy partnership at Amref HealthAfrica, said: “It’s not the right move, given
the understaffing and its resultant impact on healthcare service
provision.“Besides, it’s not a good return on investment, given the fact that
training a health worker is a costly venture and most health workers are educated
using public funds – and at the end of the day the citizens who meet the costs of
this education do not benefit from their services.”Uganda continues to face a
severe shortage of critical health workers, according to the health ministry. The
national health system performs poorly and staff encounter challenges with
accommodation and transport, not to mention months without pay.

“As a government, we can’t stop health workers from going to work abroad if they
want to. Since we have free movement of labour in Uganda, there is no reason as
to why we can stop them from going,” said health minister Sarah Achieng
Opendi.

“We also can’t absorb all [these workers] in our health government system
because of the wage bill and [limits on staff levels]. We tried to put a system to
bond health worker students who complete studies on government sponsorship.
But it doesn’t work – they took us to court. The case is still pending.”

Every year, at least 320 medical students graduate from Ugandan universities,
more than in any east African nation. But public hospitals are very short staffed.

“Uganda’s health worker crisis is caused by multiple factors. The government

refuses to provide adequate pay, health workers are not deployed to the areas
where they are most needed, and many lack the tools and support to do their jobs
effectively,” said Russell.

The medical brain drain is not restricted to Uganda – but common across sub-
Saharan Africa. A 2011 study found, for example, that 77% of physicians who had
trained in Liberia were working in the US.

Meanwhile, HIV activists have criticised the labour ministry for allowing
recruitment agencies to insist that applicants undergo an HIV test, which is
against Ugandan law on the workplace.

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“Mandatory HIV testing deprives someone of their rights to privacy and dignity,
and also those taken through the test and found HIV positive are denied the
opportunity to work. Despite the fact that they meet the qualifications, their right
to equal opportunity is denied,” said Dorah Kiconco, of the Uganda Network on
Law, Ethics and HIV–Aids. “This is wrong on all fronts. HIV does not make
someone incapable of doing what they can do.”