Ethiopia Halts Exodus of Black Jews to Israel; Arms Aid Sought

Ethiopia has abruptly halted an exodus of black Jews to Israel to pressure the Jewish state into supplying military aid to help it fight a worsening civil war, community leaders said Wednesday.

“The halt was very sudden, without any warning from the Ethiopian government,” said Rahamim Elazar, secretary of Israel’s Ethiopian organization.

“The Ethiopian government wants Israel to provide it arms due to the increasing war in recent weeks,” he said.

Community spokesmen said the sudden halt had caused desperation among some black Jews already in Israel, who have waited for years to be reunited with families left behind when they came to Israel in a secret airlift in 1984 at the height of the Ethiopian famine.

Ethiopian President Mengistu Haile Mariam, who has fought rebels for much of the past 15 years, is struggling to fend off new offensives by secessionists in the provinces of Eritrea and Tigre.

This year, he opened the gates for his country’s Jews to go to Israel openly. More than 2,000 black Jews, as they are called, arrived in January and February, compared to 3,500 in all of 1990.

This year’s sudden influx raised hopes that all 15,000 Ethiopians waiting to leave might arrive by the end of 1991. Up to 2,000 more were expected in March. But two weeks ago the exodus stopped.