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Deportations set off Ghana-Israel diplomatic standoff

Diplomacy APA - Accra - Ghana
Ghana and Israel are in the throes of a diplomatic standoff after the West African counry made a tit-for-tat response to deportations from the Jewish state last weekend.

According to the Jerusalem Post, the authorities in Ghana on Thursday deported Israeli citizens in apparent retaliation for the deportation of three Ghanaians on Sunday.

The Ghanaian deportees were in Israel as would-be Christian pilgrims.

Ghana’s foreign affairs ministry on Wednesday said the African country would retaliate in similar fashion and accused the Israeli authorities of ill-treating the three Ghanaians.

Foreign minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa told local Joy News on Thursday that the Israeli deportees had not personally committed any infraction while in Ghana but their removal from the country was a tit-for-tat retaliation for their country’s action toward Ghanaian travellers who do not deserve to be ill-treated or humiliated abroad.

The Ghanaian government had complained that seven of its citizens were on Monday detained at the Ben-Gurion Airport where they were allegedly subjected to “inhumane and traumatic treatment without justifiable cause.”

Four of the detained Ghanaians who were due to participate in the Annual International Cybersecurity Conference in Tel Aviv were only released after “more than five hours of strenuous diplomatic intervention.”

The other other three were susequently deported to Ghana who dismissed Tel Aviv’s claim that the Ghanaian embassy was not cooperative over the case for entry into Israel as ”totally untenable.”

The Ghanaian foreign ministry statement said the West African nation ”deeply values our relations with all friendly countries and expects our citizens to be treated with dignity and respect in much the same way as other governments expect Ghana to treat their nationals.”

 Israeli authorities have since issued an apology and called for a de-escalation said foreign minister Ablakwa.

WN/as/APA

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