Call for Morocco deaths inquiry

Pascale Harter
BBC, Rabat

Many migrants see Spain as "the promised land"

Human Rights Watch has called for an independent investigation into violence against illegal immigrants trying to enter Spain from Morocco.

The European Commissioner for security, Franco Frattini, said the problem is enormous.

But he did not comment on the investigation by an EU technical mission into the crisis in which 11 would-be immigrants were killed.

They are believed to have been shot dead by Moroccan border police.

Spain's foreign minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, has said he is satisfied with Morocco's efforts to deal with this complicated problem.

Abandoned

However, Madrid has temporarily suspended the deportation of illegal African migrants to Morocco, amid reports by humanitarian organisations that Moroccan police are dumping sub-Saharans in the desert without food or water.

Around 1,000 immigrants were abandoned on the desert border with Algeria last week after Spain put pressure on Morocco to stop the unprecedented influx of illegal Africans into the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla.

"They deported us, right from Nador where I stayed in Morocco here, take us to the Sahara Desert and dumped everybody there," said a 25-year-old Nigerian who gave his name as John.

"No food, no water, nothing. Those who didn't have strength after walking, walking, walking, enough sun, they fall down and die."

Spanish television has shown images of handcuffed sub-Saharans crying for help through the windows of police buses travelling through the Moroccan desert. Morocco has denied it is responsible.

But United Nations peacekeeping monitors are currently searching the Western Sahara for immigrants they believe have been abandoned there.