Morocco & Spain kill, deport African immigrants

In a new development, the Moroccan and Spanish states worked together this October for the first time in blocking, arresting, kidnapping and shooting immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa to keep them from reaching Spain and Europe. At least a dozen Africans have been killed in the crackdown.

Sign at protest in Salamanca, Spain, says: ‘No to violations, jailings, tortures in the Sahara.’

The two Spanish-controlled enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla are remnants of Spanish colonialism, located on what most people would consider the Moroccan coast. Over the years workers attempting to migrate to Europe from Africa have been attempting to reach these enclaves, sometimes taking years to do it. Until this year, Morocco ignored them and the Spanish state has allowed them to enter once they reached the enclaves.

This year both countries changed the rules. Morocco’s army fired on the immigrants as they charged the enclave’s razor-wire fence to climb over despite painful cuts. And Spain, instead of taking the immigrants across to the European continent, expelled them back to Morocco. The government of Morocco then flew some hundreds to their home countries thousands of miles away or took them to the desert near the Algerian border 320 miles south of the Mediterranean Sea.

With no chance to earn a living in their poverty-stricken home countries of Mali, Cameroon, Niger, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Rwanda and Ivory Coast, some workers will spend years covering the thousands of miles, waiting for a chance to get to Europe, even if all they can do there is sell inexpensive items in the street.

The workers who are being flown back home are the relatively lucky ones. The others are without food and water in the middle of the desert, their health and lives at severe risk.

The independent Moroccan Associ ation for Human Rights (AMDH) condemned “the barbaric violence” of Spain and Moroc co against the Africans, and called for a demonstration in solidarity with the undocumented workers for Oct. 13 in Rabat, the Moroccan capital. The AMDH stated it opposed the “xenophobia” of Morocco against the sub-Saharan Africans and denounced “the barbaric violence that led to the death of numerous immigrants and also caused a large number to be wounded.”

In Madrid, Peace Now, the Red Current and other organizations demonstrated on Oct. 9 at the Spanish Foreign Ministry in solidarity with the immigrants. These groups have called another demonstration, also for Oct. 13.