Warsaw Station: African migrants 'left in desert'

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.

3 Comments:

: Just what they deserved eh?; 10/08/2005 12:55:00 AM
: You're just jackin with me now, right?

Let me ask you this, if you build three layers of very high barbed wire fence to keep intruders out of your property, and they illegally storm and breach all layers to get into where you did not want them....are you somehow responsible for their well being and safety once they get on your soil?

Do they instantly become "your problem" as soon as they storm your defenses?

If they have breached your outer defenses, and they are working on destroying the second layer, why should you not kill them like fish in a barrel when they are trapped between layers?

If you leave some of the would be invader's bodies tied up on the fence would that reduce the incentive for another wave of attackers?

If you took the ones that successfully breached your defenses, and kept them in a labor camp close to the fence where all the would be invaders could see that IF they were successful in reaching the other side, they would be in worse shape than if they starved to death on their own side, would that reduce the incentive to breach your security?

If not then why have borders. Just allow the free movement of massive waves of human refugees to destroy the better standard of living they are desperately trying to get at, because somehow its your responsibility to assure that all your hard work to make your society prosperous is spent giving it away to the global have-nots to piss away and demand more when that runs out, so maybe one day we can all be refugees with nowhere to go. Equalization of cultural assets down to the lowest common denominator.

I got to admit, and you know I am no fan of our pretentious allies the socialist Spaniards, but I was impressed that they wrote the check, or rather demanded the EU write the check, for $40 million to pay the Moroccans to do their dirty work out of the media's spot light on their southern border. Their guilty consciouses can be moderated with a little self-righteous cash.

Had this been America in lieu of Spain, the socialist human rights crowd would be foaming at the mouth. But since its their socialist brethren the Spaniards doing all the racist bs, this will fade into obscurity long before we stop getting hammered for putting panties over the heads of natural born Islamic killers.

Has the IRC or AI labeled Spain's fence an "apartheid wall" yet? If they have I have not seen it. they kinda have to brush this incredible exhibition of racism under the rug, with just a token wink and nod....wrong bad guy this time.; 10/08/2005 09:45:00 AM
: This is not me in my backyard against evil invaders. This is a highly trained police force, with all of the benefits of guns, vehicles, and the mandate of the people. Each society ought to hold their professional protectors to respecting human rights. We ought to live by our values. That means not throwing people in the trash, which is essentially what has happened here.

In worse shape than if they starved to death on their own side?

My guess is even the Machiavellian methods you describe ultimately wouldn't stop the flow. It would slow it down, temporarily, but as the countries these people are coming from drift deeper into poverty, their desire to make their lives for themselves and their children better will grow. They already risk life and limb to travel thousands of perilous miles just to get to Ceuta and Melilla (and in the US the Rio Grande) - and they already face starvation at home - you think a starvation camp and a few corpses is going to discourage them?

I wonder how you feel about outsourcing, RT, because you ought to be for it. If big American companies had more freedom to move American jobs to places like sub-Saharan Africa or El Salvador, there wouldn't be such a big immigration problem. For every job they take from an American they could create three or four or ten in poorer countries. These people are coming to find work.

And economics is not a zero sum game. It's not like the immigrants come and then use everything up. Cheap workers generate wealth. Let's not forget that Europe is losing population. It desperately needs an influx of workers to pay for its coming retirement boom (the US is in a similar situation). There are plenty of opportunities for everyone. Why are we pushing these people away?

Perhaps because it's more profitable to keep the illegal worker system. They still pay sales and fuels taxes, among others. Heck, last year undocumented workers paid $15 billion into Social Security that they'll never use! Plus, since they're undocumented you don't have to pay them even minimum wage. They have no power to complain.

They're not coming to attack us RT. They're not coming to take all our benefits and "equalize cultural assets". They're coming to contribute. We need immigrants, both in Europe and in America. In the US, our immigrant history has been our greatest asset. More people means more ideas, more mental capital, more resources, more innovation, more diversity. It gives our society a better chance of surviving, not a worse one.

When despite all that we decide we don't want them, and if we have the resources to respect their human rights, then we must do it. If we believe something like "human rights" - rights for all humans, not only those living in our own countries - exists, then we must respect them always, not just when it's convenient.

We (the US, the EU, Poland) have the resources and so does Spain. Throwing them in the desert was not necessary, and it won't be effective.

It was just cruel.; 10/08/2005 02:51:00 PM