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Title: Morocco, Spain Get Tough on Illegal Immigrants
Source:
IPS News
URL Source: http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=31638
Published: Jan 10, 2006
Author: Jihad Omar
Post Date: 2006-01-10 12:55:55 by Zipporah
Keywords: Immigrants, Morocco,, Illegal
Views: 43
Comments: 4
CASABLANCA, Jan 2 (IPS) - Illegal immigrants seeking to start a new life in Europe will now find it impossible to jump the border after Moroccan and Spanish armies have erected a barbed wire between their common frontier. Between 14 and 16 Africans were shot dead in October 2005 after they attempted to enter the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, which are both claimed by Morocco. Following the incident, Moroccan government embarked on a programme to deport the migrants. While others were turned back, some, abandoned in the middle of the desert without food or water, were expelled. The Moroccan media recently reported the deaths of another dozen migrants. For years, Europe did not pay much attention to the plight of the migrants until it realised that people were being maimed or murdered each day while on their way to the West. The migrants are seeking their share of what they considered as the wealth plundered by Europe during centuries of contacts with Africa. The incident spurred the creation of humanitarian campaigns. And, since then, Morocco and Spain have signed agreements to deport illegal immigrants. The fate of some 50 asylum seekers remains in the balance in a refugee camp in Guelmim, southern Morocco. Morocco, a signatory to a 1951 refugee protection convention, is obliged to respect the rights of asylum seekers. Mehdi Lahlou, a Moroccan researcher specialising in immigration affairs, said: ''Only one refugee has been expelled from Morocco out of more than 3,000 since October 10 - under pressure from European Union and Spanish authorities''. Lahou is based in Rabat, the capital of Morocco. Before the storming of Ceuta and Melilla, African migrants were rarely bothered in Morocco, where they traveled more or less unfettered and without official documents. Migrants lived openly in Rabat's working-class neighborhoods where they had no conflicts with locals. These migrants, who had been living in Morocco's greener, cooler, northern climate, now suddenly find themselves in a military camp in Bouyzakern, near Guelmim, in the drier south. There are no sanitary facilities, and the asylum seekers are waiting for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to process their documents. ''We're living in terrible conditions. The wind, sand, and cold are a constant problem. We don't have enough blankets and to make matters worse, the only food we have is bread and beans,'' Issa Mutebule, a Congolese asylum seeker, who was turned back, told IPS. Congolese, Ivorians, Liberians and Sierra Leoneans represent some of the African nationalities living at the camp. ''I'm fleeing fate. The (Laurent Desire) Kabila regime killed my father and I don't want to find myself in a similar situation,'' Kissanga Lusinko, another Congolese, said bitterly. Kabila's rebel forces overthrew the regime of the Zairean dictator Mobuto Sese Seko in 1997. The conflict has displaced millions of Congolese some of whom have found their way into Morocco. In Morocco, most of the immigrants live in bad conditions, said Bouthayna Chaara, a physician for the Moroccan Human Rights Association in Tetouan, 40 kilometres from Ceuta. ''In October we organised a visit to the forest of Belyounech, near Ceuta. I immediately saw (the refugees') terrible condition, which required immediate attention,'' said Chaara. ''The refugees were undernourished and lack basic sanitary conditions.'' In mid-November, a group of Moroccan, Belgian and Spanish non-governmental organisations wrote an open letter of appeal to all concerned parties, including UN Secretary-General Koffi Anan. ''Right now, as it has been for more than 20 years, women, children and men continue to be beaten up, locked up, humiliated, overexploited, turned back, and sometimes even killed just because they dream of a decent life, unattainable in their own countries,'' the letter stated. ''Fleeing war, abject poverty, dictatorships and no future, they are crushed by state machinery which refuses to listen to, or see, them. These victims can be seen in Paris, Madrid, Rome, Brussels, Rabat, Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli,'' the document added. For Morocco, the desire by the migrants to use its territory as a gateway to Europe is a new phenomenon. Lacking the resources to deal with a problem of this magnitude, the kingdom has decided to turn a blind eye. Even EU aid would not be enough to stem the flow of the migrants. The solution lies probably elsewhere, starting with the urgent need for development in the countries that produce refugees, according to immigration researcher Lahlou. All is not rosy for asylum seekers. ''Asylum seekers, who go to the UNHCR in Rabat to file a case, receive an acknowledgment stating a date they need to return for their case to be heard. Right now, such dates may be in 2007 or 2008,'' he explained. ''The people who filed these cases have no refugee status and thus none of the protection such status entails. They continue to be considered illegal''. UNHCR has registered 1,700 asylum cases, the majority of them from sub-Saharan countries. But, according to the UN refugee agency, ''asylum seekers enjoy the same rights as refugees, until a definitive ruling is handed down on their cases''. Even Morocco's November 2003 immigration law stipulates, in effect, that Morocco must abstain from deporting, turning back or expelling asylum seekers or refugees until all legal appeals have been exhausted. Merouane Tassi, a UNHCR official in Morocco, told IPS that they ''have validated only a few cases among the about 30 asylum seekers they interviewed'' in the Guelmim camp. Mutebule, one of those turned back on Nov. 23, confirmed that the 45 people rejected had exhausted the avenues of recourse granted by UNHCR, which is the only body with jurisdiction to determine the fate of asylum seekers. Once a case is rejected after all avenues of recourse are exhausted, the person in question then falls under the legal jurisdiction of Moroccan immigration law. People living in Morocco illegally are supposed to be deported: this was the unfortunate fate that befell Mutebule and his 44 colleagues. But human rights groups question the criteria upon which cases are accepted or rejected. ''How can you ignore the risks run by people turned back to countries where they have no guarantee of living in peace?'', wondered Jamaleddine Laamarti, the president of the Moroccan Human Rights Association in Tetouan. A Moroccan government official, who requested anonymity, told IPS, ''For young sub-Saharans, Morocco is only a transit to Europe. Therefore, the request for asylum in no way means that the seeker wants to remain in the country''. This poses a problem, he said. ''We cannot keep all the immigrants. There are thousands of them and don't forget that we ourselves have our own immigrants (in Europe) who sometimes live under the same conditions,'' he added. ''We need a global solution to this problem. The countries producing immigrants must be held equally responsible''. 01021451 ORP002 NNNN
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#1. To: Zipporah (#0)
Give me a break.
Look just a tad south of you and you'll see the same attitude.
Give me a break. They have a point, they were plundered (and some still are for oil, gold and diamonds). Of course only a handful of elites ever profited. Yet all of europe and the UK are barraged by the new immigrants. OTOH, the colonies also had roads, railroads, schools, hospitals and other modernization brought to them. Maybe the Brits should all migrate to Rome and complain too? They will travel on the roads that the Romans built to get there.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. It's a mess all right. Zachary Taylor left Mexico City way too early. A nation without borders is not much of a nation.
The migrants are seeking their share of what they considered as the wealth plundered by Europe during centuries of contacts with Africa.
#2. To: lodwick (#1)
Give me a break.
#3. To: lodwick, Zipporah (#1)
The migrants are seeking their share of what they considered as the wealth plundered by Europe during centuries of contacts with Africa.
~James Madison
#4. To: Zipporah, robin, all (#2)
Look just a tad south of you and you'll see the same attitude.
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