A serious suspicion: Hundreds of Yemeni children are said to have been taken away from their parents in the 1950s under false pretenses. Now a tomb is opened. Does it bring certainty?
In the scandal surrounding the missing children of Yemeni and other oriental immigrants in Israel, a child’s grave was opened on Monday.
The Israeli Ministry of Health wants to take DNA samples from the grave in a cemetery in Petach Tikva near Tel Aviv. The aim of the investigation is to bring certainty to the case of Usiel Churi. However, according to the ministry, a DNA test can take several weeks.
Churi is one of thousands of children of Jewish immigrants from Yemen and other Eastern countries who, according to witnesses, disappeared in mysterious circumstances in Israel in the 1950s. Families accused the authorities of passing them on to childless Holocaust survivors. According to estimates, there are between 1,500 and 5,000 children. Many fates could never be clearly clarified. Several commissions of inquiry did not bring any final clarity. In 2018, a law was passed that allows grave openings.
Declared dead under suspicious circumstances
According to the family, Churi, who was born in 1952, was pronounced dead at the age of one under suspicious circumstances. The family, who hail from the Tunisian island of Jerba, have questioned whether he really lies in the tomb that bears his name. “It’s been 69 years since he disappeared,” Churi’s sister Masal Berko told Israeli broadcaster Kan when the grave was opened. “I want to believe that the state will tell us the truth. We only want the truth.”
After opening archives in 2016, Minister Zachi Hanegbi came to the conclusion that hundreds of Yemeni children had been taken away from their parents and given away. Last year, the Israeli government expressed regret and announced compensation payments of 162 million shekels (around 46 million euros) for affected families.
Source: Stern
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