Lâagued (liberated territories) 13/10/2005 (SPS) Saharawi authorities succeeded in collecting more than 40 illegal immigrant, who were abandoned by the Moroccan authorities in the middle of the desert of the Western Sahara after having ill-treated them, depriving them from the passports, money and even clothes, reported SPS’s special envoy. 

While we were driving in the middle of the desert heading to the region of Lâagued, from where news reported that Saharawi military patrols have found dozens African illegal immigrants in a very bad state, we found ourselves an immigrant, who was walking slowly, alone, and apparently was very tired. We stopped our car and picked the poor young man up. 

After he felt secure and felt we do not want him any harm, Mr. Yaco Ampoma, from Gana, 35 years married and father to 5 children, told us his story and the story of his other companions he lost, because he was too weak to keep with the group, during a 3 long days march in the desert. "We were about 160 immigrants, from many nationalities, w were arrested in Rabat or Nadour (Morocco) for the majority, handcuffed like animals, gathered in Oujda (North-East- Morocco), transferred from police station to another as if we were criminals, we were finally transported in 4 busses, escorted by Moroccan gendarmes who took us to a destination we ignored", the young African said. 

"After 4 days, they brutally ordered us out of the busses in a kind of military base, the Moroccan military and gendarmes robbed us. They took everything, our money, clothes, even our passports they tore them and forced us to cross a kind of wall under the threat of arms", he added. 

One hour later, we arrived to a place where 16 immigrants were collected by the Saharawi army. They were sitting, about to eat and drink after having been rescued by a Saharawi military patrol, which informed about them and called for assistance. They were from Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and Mali. These immigrants told us the same story, expressing their indignation about the treatment they were subjected to by the Moroccan authorities.  

"There are hundreds others who are gathered by the Moroccan authorities as animals in camps. They certainly took them and abandoned them in the desert, maybe that some of them are even dead. We would have died if this patrol of Polisario did not find us", affirmed Mr. Timouthy Osemwenichal, a 28 years old Nigerian. 

Asking one of the Saharawi officers, who collected another group of 8 illegal immigrants we met with in the Saharawi borders post of ElHamra, he expressed his concern in front of this phenomenon. "Apart from been a pure barbaric act perpetrated by the Moroccan authorities and an expression of complete disdain and disrespect to human rights, it is a real human tragedy, human lives are deliberately put in danger. At this very moment that we are talking, our patrols are trying hard to find other immigrants, who were expulsed by the Moroccan forces according to their companions". 

The illegal immigrants called the United Nations and all the international organisations "to do something so as to put an end to this human massacre the regime of Mohamed VI is perpetrating, everyday, I say everyday against his brothers Africans", said Mr. Conne Amadou, a 28 years old young from Côte d’Ivoire. (SPS) 

060/090/000 132345 Oct 05 SPS

 

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SPS MOROCCO/SADR/ILLEGAL IMMIGRANCE Many groups of illegal immigrants abandoned by Rabat in the middle of the desert