Pan Africanism : Seeking Europe's 'promised land'

panafrica

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Aug 24, 2002
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The Diaspora
As hundreds of Africans seek to storm the fences of the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in North Africa - some dying in the process - the BBC News website's Joseph Winter reflects on his trip to meet the migrants in the Moroccan forests near Ceuta.

Moussa Sakho from Mali said he went "on the attack" every night.

He took a ladder fashioned from branches and whatever else he could get his hands on and tried to get over the imposing double fence topped with razor-wire which separates Morocco from the Spanish enclave of Ceuta.

He usually returned to the mountain camps where he lived with other would-be immigrants - with a few cuts and bruises from the Spanish border police and maybe a lungful of tear gas.

When I met him, he lived in hope that one day, he would strike it lucky.

I have no way of knowing what happened to him - whether he made it, was sent back home, died trying or is now involved in these attempts to rush the fence.

Mali is one of the world's poorest countries and Moussa felt he had no future there.

He dreamt of being able to find a job where he could earn enough to support his family and maybe buy a few luxuries, like a television or even a car.

And he thought he could only do this in Europe - or "Eldorado" as he and the other "comrades" call it.

With visas increasingly difficult to come by and airlines refusing to take people without valid papers, Moussa felt Europe's only land borders with Africa offered his best chance.

Ceuta and nearby Melilla are magnets for thousands of Africans dreaming of fleeing poverty and conflict from across West and Central Africa.

The ones I met were too worried about being found by the police to take me to the camp itself - "the ghetto". But I could see a few patches of blue plastic glinting in the sunlight across the green wooded mountain valley, along with wafts of smoke rising from their fires.

When the wind blew in the right direction, I could also hear the sound of distant singing and chattering.

Near the pipe where they got water supplies, I met migrants from across West Africa: Senegal, The Gambia, Mali, Guinea-Bissau, Ghana, Cameroon and Nigeria.

Each nationality apparently had its own separate section of the camp but they said their common goal - one Nigerian called it the "promised land" of Europe - united them despite their diverse origins.

I was even told that the "ghetto" had its own laws - thieves for example were punished by being tied to a tree.

Although there was some water, my nose soon told me that this was used for drinking, not washing.

Some had spent several months living rough and the stench was at times difficult to bear.

I did not mention it, but they readily admitted that there was a lack of hygiene. Moussa pulled up his T-shirt to show me the flea bites that covered his body.

But for those with money for the Moroccan people smugglers, there was a menu of alternative ways to reach Spain: 800 euros for getting around the border to Ceuta in an inflatable raft, 600 euros for digging a tunnel or 500 euros for cutting a hole in the fences.

"If we are caught cutting the fence ourselves, we are sent to prison, instead of just being thrown back into the woods," Boubacar Drame from Senegal explained.

After enduring extreme hardship and the ever-present possibility that each day would be their last as they crossed the Sahara desert to reach Morocco, many of those who attack the fences are no longer afraid of dying.

Moussa had seen a close friend from his home village die and did not have the courage to let his family know.

Another migrant - Mamadou Saliou "Billy" Diallo - recalled that after a policeman knocked out his front tooth with a rifle butt as he was trying to reach a tunnel under the fence to Ceuta, he "reached the point of no return".

"I was determined to reach Europe or die trying. After everything I had gone through, I didn't care any more," he said.

So the death of four people trying to storm the fences will not deter those left behind.

Indeed, the attempt to storm the fence in Ceuta may well have been encouraged by the "success" of a similar attempt in Melilla, further east.

Some 500 people stormed the fence at the same time - about 100 got through and are now being processed on European territory.

Another 50 were arrested and 18 were injured, but for these desperate people, those represent good odds.

After similar mass attempts to storm the border several years ago, a second razor wire fence was built around Ceuta and the number of migrants getting through dropped from around 10,000 a year to about 1,500.

Now, Spain says it will send in the army.

But the alternative to trying to get over the fence is the sea crossing, which is far more hazardous, taking migrants either over the Mediterranean Sea to the Spanish mainland or the Atlantic Ocean to the Canary Islands.

The bodies of would-be immigrants are frequently washed up on Spanish and Moroccan beaches after their rickety wooden or inflatable boats capsized.

But unless living standards are raised in Africa, young men and women will continue to risk their lives trying to reach Europe.

"They say that to die once is better than dying 10 times in the face of your parents' pity," says Khalil Jemmah, from the AFVIC group set up to defend the immigrants' rights in Morocco.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4292840.stm
 
Morocco has sent the first of several planes full of illegal West African migrants to Senegal. The migrants accuse Morocco's security forces of ill-treating them. The flight with 140 migrants arrived from Oujda, near the Algerian border.

Hundreds of migrants were dumped there after trying to enter or being expelled from Spanish enclaves in North Africa.

Amid growing international concern, humanitarian groups have criticised Spain for expelling the migrants.

Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos is visiting Morocco to discuss the crisis as it reviews its deportations policy.

A government official in the Melilla enclave said no more deportations were planned at the moment.

The aid agency, Medecins Sans Frontieres, said on Friday it had found more than 500 migrants abandoned by Moroccan police in the Sahara desert without food or water, some of whom had been illegally expelled by Spanish police.

Twenty-eight-year-old Aboubakar Diallo from Mali said he was ready to go home after failing to make it into Melilla.

"It's tough here... it's hell on earth, lack of water, no food and live ammunition to face. We get treated like animals," told AFP news agency.

The migrants who remain in one of the enclaves, Melilla, say their treatment at the hands of the Moroccan security forces was appalling, the BBC's Chris Morris in Melilla says.

They have appealed to Spain not to deport anyone else back across the border.

Spain and Morocco have taken a tougher line against the migrants in the last few days, after thousands of people tried to storm the high razor wire fences which surround Melilla and Ceuta.

Hundreds of migrants made it across, but at least 11 were killed.

That prompted Spain to deport some of the new arrivals back to Morocco, a move denounced by humanitarian groups.

They say hundreds of other migrants caught on the Moroccan side of the border have been taken further south and dumped in the remote desert region near the airport at Oujda.

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has urged the two governments to treat the migrant groups humanely.

The European Union and UN are sending teams to Morocco amid growing concern about how the authorities are treating immigrants.

The issue presents a big dilemma for Spain, but it could also become a political problem for the Socialist government, our correspondent says.

A new opinion poll says illegal immigration now tops the list of issues which concern Spanish voters the most.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4326670.stm
 
Spain reviews migrant deportation

Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos is to visit Morocco for talks on how to handle migrants seeking to enter Spain's North African enclaves.The Spanish government is reviewing its policy on deporting illegal migrants from Melilla and Ceuta back to Morocco amid mounting international concern. A government official in the Melilla enclave said no more deportations were planned at the moment....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4325372.stm

I´m currently in Spain visiting my wife´s family, and news of Africans being deported have dominated headlines. On nightly and morning news programs, images of Africans crying while being handcuffed and loaded on buses are vivid in my mind. I can´t feel anything but heartbreak for these people. I am particularly sad for them because my wife´s family were also African refugees.

This forum has recently been criticized for not having solutions to Africa´s problems (and for avoiding discussions about Africa´s problems). Therefore I´d like to know who has an idea about how help can be provided for these Africans being deported back to their countries to face possible retaliation?
 
panafrica said:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4325372.stm

I´m currently in Spain visiting my wife´s family, and news of Africans being deported have dominated headlines. On nightly and morning news programs, images of Africans crying while being handcuffed and loaded on buses are vivid in my mind. I can´t feel anything but heartbreak for these people. I am particularly sad for them because my wife´s family were also African refugees.

This forum has recently been criticized for not having solutions to Africa´s problems (and for avoiding discussions about Africa´s problems). Therefore I´d like to know who has an idea about how help can be provided for these Africans being deported back to their countries to face possible retaliation?

These are the types of stories/situations I type up doing my transcription work, only they are in America not Spain.
 
panafrica said:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4325372.stm

I´m currently in Spain visiting my wife´s family, and news of Africans being deported have dominated headlines. On nightly and morning news programs, images of Africans crying while being handcuffed and loaded on buses are vivid in my mind. I can´t feel anything but heartbreak for these people. I am particularly sad for them because my wife´s family were also African refugees.

This forum has recently been criticized for not having solutions to Africa´s problems (and for avoiding discussions about Africa´s problems). Therefore I´d like to know who has an idea about how help can be provided for these Africans being deported back to their countries to face possible retaliation?

A. what do you mean by retaliation?

B. can we get together some type of food/clothing or money donation here at destee and send it to these people?
 

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