RABAT , 13 October 2005 — Morocco, under pressure to staunch an inrush of immigrants into Spain, flew 139 illegal migrants back to Mali yesterday and vowed to continue with the mass deportations despite sharp criticism from the United Nations. Moroccan officials added that Rabat expects to reach a new agreement with Spain to bolster its struggle against illegal immigration, which has taken on new urgency in recent weeks since hundreds of migrants stormed the Spanish North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla.
“More Malian migrant groups will be flown on four similar flights later today and on Thursday from Oujda to bring the total number of Malians to be deported to 606,” said a senior government official, who declined to be named. Oujda lies 540 km east of Rabat and is an entry point for illegal migrants from Algeria.
The Moroccan government, which deported 549 Senegalese migrants to Dakar on Monday and Tuesday, said it would send home more illegal migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa, despite the protests of a United Nations investigator.
“The Moroccan state is taking its responsibility in the fight against illegal migration and is determined to protect its borders,” Junior Foreign Minister Taieb Fassi Fihri said. Fihri told reporters late on Tuesday that Morocco was fighting “the complex regional problem of immigration.”
“Let’s not forget that these migrants arrive across Algeria and their sole aim is to reach Europe: We are a jumping off point,” Fihri said, responding to criticism after emigrants were left in the desert at Algeria’s border without food and water by security forces. Many had been trying to reach Europe via two Spanish enclaves in Morocco that constitute European Union territory on Africa’s northern soil. “Morocco fulfils its obligations and contributes alone, without receiving a euro, to the struggle against illicit emigration,” the minister said.
“Morocco alone cannot tackle immigration. Migrants are pushed from their countries by poverty, drought and other woes to Europe,” Interior Minister Mustapaha Sahel said at the briefing, also attended by top security officials.
The deportations drew sharp criticism from the United Nations’ special investigator on human rights, Jorge Bustamante, who urged Morocco to halt the flights, saying they were in breach of international conventions.
“Collective deportations in these conditions endanger the right to life,” he said in a statement issued in Geneva. “I urge the Moroccan government to cease collective deportations as a matter of urgency.”
Bustamante called on the governments of Spain and Morocco to cooperate in a “prompt, transparent and independent investigation” into the deaths of at least 11 migrants from bullet wounds near the Spanish enclaves, possibly at the hands of security forces.
