franziska's blog

We just finished talking to Helena Maleno and the last information are the following:

They still continue a convoy with about seven to ten busses through the West-Sahara. We have been behind them all night, passing Tantin, a village somewhere near the border with Mauritania and they where directing towards Tayoune even more nearby the border. So this convoy does not go to Algeria but to Mauritania!

The situation continues to be difficult. We keep talking to them by mobil and related to the last informations are are besides the ayslum seekers students from Tangiers on these busses. They have been told to get on the there.

To continue I write you a testimony that summarizes and reflects the view of the immigrants of Nador on their attempt to get into Melilla. The Moroccan authorities admit officially six deads. "At 2:30 in the morning (moroccan time) we arrived at the wire fence. We saw four helicopters, seems like there have been three spanish ones and one Moroccan. We didn't even cross the first fence and nobody crossed our way, we could go all the way there. They began to shoot and throught tear gas at us. I saw two bodies falling on my side. The Moroccan police came to us from behind and from ahead the Spanish police, some of them on Moroccan territory. They were shooting at us from both sides, from the Spanish and the Moroccan one. I myself transported a wounded with a bullet in the pie. In the hospital of Nador is an injured comrade of us, who saw seven deads arriving. There in the woods are still many injured and I don't know if there is any medical help. Also there are 32 injured persons, many of them got hured due to bullets. Arms and legs are broken. Nodody can enter there, not even the humanitarian organisations that would like to help, like Medecins sans Frontieres, because they keep us all closed up. In the Maroccan small shops they are scared to sell us food. We havn't attacked thousends of people, it's impossible... The situation is very heavy: Until they took us, our lifes havn't been in danger at least. Now they take one back to the Sahara and one dies. You have to choose between dying in the desert or to get shoot in the wire fence." L.,C.

The money the Moroccan government received by Spanish helpers is used by the military of the Alaouita Kingdom. Throughout the weekend there have been raids in the cities of Casablanca and Rabat. No "black" could escape, not even those with official papers beeing notifying that they are asylum seekers for political reasons and who are under protection of the United Nations. Yesterday, Sunday 2nd of October, police station number 15 of Rabat more than thirty people have been arrested the whole day. They came from sub-Sahara asking for asylum.

Notifying, that they did not receive food or water but racist insults, they have been lucky. Others could not return to their houses, e.g. one of the arrested groups that we talked to in the police station number 3 of Rabat, district of Aynnada 1. There we met more then 50 african citizens locked up in cells. Among them have been nine asylumn seekers, a Nigerian, four Costamarfileños and four Congoleses. They have been brought into prison at 8 o'clock in in the morning. Three Costamarfileños, a Nigerian and an Congolés together with many others were embarked in buses until Oujda (at the border to Algeria) approximately at 10 pm. One of them, Adama, coming from the Ivory Coast, has a serious stomach-infection and was arrested when he got to the hospital. The police didn't let him take his medicine until today at noon. Adama finished by saying desparately" they say are going to take to us to the Sahara, so we would not return. The police told us that and started laughing. One boy is half dead, he lays on the floor and shows no reaction. He breathes but his eyes are all white and they don't take him to the hospital. I have all my papers, my inscription beeing asylum seeker. The thruth is, that I am more in danger here then in my home country with war going on."

After being all morning in communication with the immigrants who passed to Ceuta, we can testify the following facts:

At three o'clock in the morning a group of twenty Congoleses and some Costamarfileños crossed the two fences that separates Morocco from Ceuta. With them there have been other immigrants from different origins. We could hear people talking in some South-accent Castellano, supposively Guardia Civil, who gave them orders like: "Keep sitting!"; "Don't you move from there!". We also could hear in some moment giving the afirmation: "this fucking nigger!". About two hours after the first phone call, the immigrants still have been waiting for any medical care and we could heard them shout and weeping, calling: "The Red Cross should some!".

At another tense moment on the phone the immigrants and asylum seekers said to us that they want expel them and are opening the small door of the fence. In particular we spoke with one Costamarfileño, who is member of the rebellious forces of Alasane Ouatara, which is into war against the official government of the Ivory Coast. This man begins to shout for political asylum, repeats it three times in French and two times in Spanish. Then a choir, Costamarfileños that give him company, starts to ask for asylum by voice. After that they cut of the communication. When we got back to them they are stopped by Moroccan police after beeing deported irregular and illegalmente due to the small door in the fence by the Guardia Civil. Their destiny will be once more the Algerian border. While being expelled in an irregular and illegal way to Morocco, this group meets a group of twenty Congoleses. Some of them already asked for political asylum on Moroccan territory. After recognizing the brutal way people get searched in Morocco since two weeks, that asylum seekers have been tortured and deported to Algeria, they decided to solicitate asylum in Europe.