Some 15,000 Jews from all parts of Libya who are now living in Tripoli as refugees from pogroms or threat of pogroms fear that they will not be able to leave the city and migrate to Israel before the country is turned over to Arab administration, the European headquarters of the Joint Distribution Committee reported here this week-end.
The country, which is presently ruled by a British military administration, will be turned over to the Arabs in 16 months, under the terms of a United Nations decision. So far more than 20,000 Libyan Jews have been aided to flee the country, the J.D.C. reports, but prospects for further emigration are not so hopeful because of a lack of funds.
Tripoli became a Jewish refugee center shortly after pogroms swept Tripolitania late in 1945. A number of Jews were beaten and killed and their homes and businesses wrecked and robbed. Since then many Jews who survived the massacres sold their businesses and homes in the face of Arab hostility, fanned by the Arab-Israel war.
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