About 1,000 African migrants protesting Israel’s policy on asylum-seekers marched out of an open detention centre and camped out near the southern border with Egypt. Mainly composed of Eritrean and Sudanese migrants left the Holot camp facility because Israel had not processed their claims for asylum, Middle East Eye reported.

The sit-in came a day after Israeli soldiers stopped the demonstrators from crossing the border. The protesters, who are allowed out during the day, said that their march was to protest against their “inhuman and unlimited” detention at Holot.

One demonstrator said the authorities presented it as an “open facility”, but it was “actually a prison”. The migrants were calling on the United Nations to help resettle them elsewhere. About 50,000 Africans have poured into Israel in recent years from Egypt in order to flee persecution and danger.