The architectural juxtaposition of plantation tents and border barrier, refugee camp and high security prison at Israel‘s border with Egypt is honest at least. For refugees from the crisis stricken east African countries of Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia who don‘t dare cross the Mediterranean, Israel offers the only land bridge. The Saharonim Prison, in the middle of the Negev Desert, Dozens of kilometres from the next Israeli settlement and exempt from independent international control, it was originally built for Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. In 2012, Israel – itself a nation of refugees – expanded the world‘s largest detention facility for African asylum seekers. It has capacity for up to 8 500 immigrants. From there, the 140 km long border barrier between Egypt and Israel is visible. Constructed at the same time as the prison, it is not only related to Israel‘s complex system of walls, fences and barricades; it also forms the eastern end of the north to south border to keep out illegal African immigrants that stretches from Gibraltar to the Red Sea. Its primary material, besides barbed wire, is the water of the Mediterranean.