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.
This comrade from Camerun is right. Until this moment it's impossible to count the number of disappeared. But we know that from last Saturday until Wednesday this week some 60 busses with about 40 to 60 people have been deported at some zone in the desert, at the border between Algeria and Morocco. This means that more than 2400 people have been deported during these days. Throught this zone goes the borderline, which isn't clear defined and where the territory-conflict is goiung on between Algeria and Morocco. From side of all different groups we talked to, they declared about 36 deads and some unkown number of disapeared. Among the Africans some preoccupation about these facts is latent existing and in their countries of origin it's on tv and in the radio all day long. In Black Africa they talk about a genozide and a hunting of the blacks. We verified that at least some thirty of the asylum seekers are deported. We have at least talked to three citizens, on Senegalés and a Cameroun whose papers are all in order with the Moroccan state. They have verified the deportation of at least ten women with babies and some fifty, who said to be pregnant. We are even more worried about the situation of the women, because they are more affected by the violence, especially the violence sexual during the deportations.
One of the testimonies we've got, explains and summarizes the procedure of deportation due to Moroccan authorities. "I was in Spain. That night we tried to enter Ceuta. It had passed the two wire fences and run into the Guardia Civil, who made me turn back with an impressive brutality that I never thought could happen in a democratic country. They brought me to the Moroccan military together with 155 injured of different grades. They all have been shooting with real bullets, the Spanish and the Moroccans and the Spanish while we have been on top of the fence and the deads fall down. I remember the deads and I felt dying myself inside. The Moroccan authorities transported us to the city Qujda, as always. When I got there I met a huge amount of other Africans coming from other places in Morocco. I saw many with papers aplying for asylum, signed out by ACNUR, that explained that they are under temporary protection of the United Nations. I saw also comrades who had a visa for Morocco or a seal of entrance in their passport that didn't yet had expired. I saw women and babies, women pregnant. They put to us into buses. I thought they would bring us to the border of Oujda about twenty kilometers from there as they always do. There have been fourteen buses. We went towards the south, about six hundred kilometers of Oujda, I suppose. Later the buses stopped and military trucks and jeeps arrived. They separated to us into small groups and brougth us in the desert. They left us there without food and water. Far away we saw lights, the Morrocans said this is Algeria. We have marched all night towards the lights and when we arrived we found ourselves in an Algerian military camp. They gave us water and food. Some arrived later, but some didn't arrive at all, we had lost them in the desert. I swear you that those, who didn't arrive died. The Algerians didn't mistreat us at this moment. They transferred us and showed us the way, so we wouldn't run into the Moroccan military camp. They took to us in jeeps and/or military trucks. The problem is if they return you to the Moroccan military, they would deport you once again and you have to start from the beginning. There are deportations of injured, with broken legs, who cannot walk and which stay in the desert. We didn't think about ourselves. We are well, but who were left in the middle of the desert. We asked to look for them with helicopters and that there isn't much time left."
