Posted on 10/07/2005 3:38:47 PM PDT by aculeus
An aid agency says it has found more than 500 migrants abandoned in the Moroccan desert after being expelled from Spain's North African enclaves.
The migrants said they had entered or tried to enter Ceuta and Melilla but were forced back, loaded onto trucks and driven to the Algerian border.
The discovery by the Spanish branch of Medecins Sans Frontieres follows migrant bids to storm border fences.
Six died on Thursday, some apparently shot while trying to enter Melilla.
Illegal expulsions
A group of 70 migrants were expelled from Melilla on Friday, in the first set of official expulsions expected under a revived 1992 accord between Spain and Morocco.
It allows illegal entrants to be sent back to Morocco, even if they are of different nationalities.
Until now, migrants who successfully entered the enclaves have been housed in holding centres or sent to mainland Spain to await expulsion to their country of origin, often resulting in their release.
But an MSF spokeswoman said that while some of the 500 found in the desert had been detained before they managed to cross the Ceuta and Melilla fences, others had been illegally expelled by Spanish police.
MSF said the sub-Saharan migrants had been "abandoned to their fate" near El Aouina-Souatar, hundreds of kilometres south of the enclaves. The group included pregnant women and children.
The agency said staff had treated more than 50 of them for injuries suffered as a result of crossing the barbed-wire fences.
But the MSF statement claimed some of the injuries were also the result of violence inflicted by the Spanish and Moroccan police as "some showed bruises from being hit by rubber bullets".
EU mission
Javier Gabaldon, co-ordinator in Morocco, denounced the "expulsion and later abandonment of these immigrants to a zone without access to food and water and without the possibility of receiving medical or humanitarian aid".
MSF said "the sending back of immigrants as agreed by Spain and Morocco to a country which does not have minimal capacity to receive them violates Article Three of the (UN) Convention against Torture".
Other aid organisations said they had evidence of similar incidents in recent weeks.
The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has also raised concerns and called for joint action to tackle the crisis.
The European Union and Spain are both sending missions to Morocco to tackle the issue of illegal immigration. Story from BBC NEWS:
Published: 2005/10/07 15:03:24 GMT
© BBC MMV
Spain's government has announced plans to upgrade the border fences around the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. The security system detailed in the graphic will be installed in the hope of preventing groups of immigrants from storming the fences.
exactly what the United States needs from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico
We need that from the Otay Mesa to the mouth of the Rio Grande.
I think this will get lots of fav comments.
Ah, the only pork the GOP majority *refuses* to fund.
How about the northern border?
Isn't Spain worried that their Muslim population might object and blow up another train or two? After all, some of these African migrants are undoubtedly Muslims.
The New World can be trusted to govern itself. The Third World cannot.
Sorry, but I don't buy that for a minute.
Love the idea of the fence and will never understand why it isn't already in place let alone not even on the drawing board.
Bump.
I guess the Mexicans can fly to Canada and then sneak through our northern border.
The Canadian border could use some personell but there are only around 12,000 illegal crossings from the north as opposed to over a million in the south each year.
I mean,they've declared the US to be the most dangerous nation on earth and they've declared homosexual marriage to be just fine and dandy.
And now we see them trying to deny these poor "undocumented workers" the opportunity to enter their "Utopia".
Do I detect a very large whiff of hypocrisy on the part of this enlightened continent we call "Europe"?
We have a President who wants open borders from Canada to Mexico, that's why.
I wish FOX would go there and show the wall.
They need to put about 20,000 volts of juice to that fence.
Agree. I was just posing the question but remain deeply disillusioned with W, and not just about his Admins brain dead response to Illegal Immigration.
The Administration's position may be sickening and reprehensible, but it is by no means 'brain dead'.
It is a calculated assault on the middle class in the interest of cheap, disposable labor and an undifferentiated voting bloc.
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