Human Rights Watch (HRW) hammered Israel today for its appalling treatment of thousands of African migrants.

The watchdog group warned that Israeli authorities have coerced almost 7,000 Eritrean and Sudanese to return to their native countries, where they face serious abuse.

It said that returning Sudanese emigrants have faced torture, arbitrary detention and treason charges at the hands of the Sudanese government, while returning Eritrean citizens also face harassment.

For several years, Israel has placed thousands of Eritrean and Sudanese migrants in a primitive detention centre in the Negev desert.

Citing statements by senior Israeli officials, including former Israeli interior minister Eli Yishai, HRW alleges the aim of the policy was to make life so intolerable for the migrants that they left Israel of their own volition.

“Destroying people’s hope of finding protection by forcing them into a corner and then claiming they are voluntarily leaving Israel is transparently abusive,” said HRW report author Gerry Simpson.

“Eritreans and Sudanese immigrants are left with the choice of living in fear of spending the rest of their days locked up in desert detention centres or risking detention and abuse back home.”

Since 2006, some 50,000 Eritreans and Sudanese have entered Israel illegally via the Sinai desert.

Under Israel’s Prevention of Infiltration Law, it can detain asylum-seekers without trial and hold them in an “open resident centre” for unspecified periods.

Asylum-seekers kept at the Holot centre in the Negev desert must check in three times a day.

They are banned from working outside the facility and are locked in at night. At the end of June, at least 1,000 African asylum-seekers left the centre and marched to the border with Egypt.

They set up a protest camp and demanded an end to their detention but were evicted by Israeli police and returned to the prison.

Israeli Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sabine Haddad retorted that Israel was dealing with the issue in a legal and appropriate way.

“The growth in the voluntary repatriation of the migrants by three times from 2013 to 2014 proves the policy is working,” she claimed.