Morocco flies migrants home

Morocco, under pressure to stem illegal immigration to Spain and accused by rights groups of mistreating migrants, began flying detained Africans to Senegal and Mali yesterday, government officials said.

"We have already flown 140 illegal migrants back home in Senegal this morning and we are preparing a flight of 140 others also to Senegal soon from Oujda," a senior official told Reuters.

He and other officials said a total of 365 Senegalese would be deported by plane yesterday and over the next few two days.

They added that 600 people from Mali would also be deported within the next few days.

Moroccan Junior Foreign Minister Taieb Fihri met yesterday Senegalese Foreign Minister Abdou Malal Diop and then Mali's Minister in charge of Expatriates Dicko Omar Hamadoun over migrant deportations, state news agency MAP said.

Mr Fihri said, in remarks carried by MAP, Rabat "will not tolerate the illegal presence on its territory" of migrants.

Oujda lies 540 kilometres east of Rabat and is an entry point for illegal migrants from Algeria.

"Morocco has agreements with Mali and Senegal allowing Rabat to deport illegal migrants to these two countries," said a senior government official, who did not want to be identified.

"Morocco alone is paying for these deportations and does not receive aid from outside," he added.

The officials gave no further details about the deported migrants but rights activists said they were among 1,500 dumped by Moroccan authorities in the desert last week before they managed to trek back to camps in the Feguig area.

The authorities' action was reported by the medical aid organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres, which said it had discovered hundreds of people, including pregnant women and children, who said they were rounded up by Moroccan forces and abandoned in the desert.

The migrants, most from sub-Saharan Africa, had been escorted by Moroccan authorities in buses from the north of the kingdom, where they had been trying to enter Spain illegally.

Hundreds of Africans have in recent weeks stormed Spanish North African outposts of Ceuta and Melilla, the only EU territory located in Africa.

Madrid and Rabat have responded by sending troops to the frontier and Spain has deported some of the new arrivals back to Morocco, a move denounced by humanitarian groups.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has urged the two governments to treat the migrant groups humanely. The European Union and United Nations are sending teams to Morocco amid growing concern about how the authorities are treating immigrants.

Francesca Fontanini, spokeswoman for UN refugee agency UNHCR, was with a UNHCR delegation that visited a holding centre for immigrants in Melilla.

"We are interested in speaking to the people who have come to Melilla from countries where there are conflicts such as Ivory Coast, Sudan, Congo, Liberia or Sierra Leone to see if there is a possibility of political asylum," she said.