Immigrants traced by cellphones
2005-10-11 14:30
Madrid - Mobile telephones in the hands of sub-Saharan African immigrants left to their fate in the desert after trying to reach Spain have proved to be a key weapon in the fight against human rights abuses, allowing aid organisations and the media to find them.
"From the start mobile telephones have been vital for our actions in Morocco," according to Amanda Sanz of Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders - MSF), which last Friday said that Moroccan authorities had abandoned hundreds of immigrants in the desert.
"Mobiles have been a revolution," allowing the immigrants to be found some 600km south of the border town of Oujda, she said.
"They called us," Sanz added. "These are people we know from travelling with them in the woods around Ceuta or Nador," respectively one of Spain's north African enclaves and a border town near the twin enclave of Melilla.
"They were waiting there for the moment to jump" the border fences demarcating Morocco from Spain, Sanz said.
Essential communication
"They called us with their mobiles when they had a problem, either in the shape of Moroccan police raids or when (Spanish) police expelled them, or else when gangs linked to the mafia and people-traffickers attacked them.
"They telephoned to tell us about the injured. Contact with them by mobile has been essential in our interventions."
Hundreds of Africans have been left to fend for themselves in recent days after being ejected from Ceuta and Melilla or dispersed by Moroccan authorities into the desert without provisions, prompting an international outcry.
Fourteen people recently died trying to scale the metal border fences of the Spanish enclaves.
Mobile phones have also allowed journalists to find Africans in the Moroccan desert or packed into convoys of buses whose existence the Moroccans have yet officially to confirm.
Technology a help - for now
"Technology is on our side - at least for the moment, until the Moroccans take away their phones," says Diego Llorente of the non-governmental organisation SOS Racismo.
MSF and SOS Racismo have been trying to keep up with the progress of the buses, using their communications with the immigrants to guide themselves and monitor the latter's progress.
"If we can we will go on doing so," says Llorente.
One refugee, Emmanuel, said on Monday evening he had been switching off his mobile periodically to conserve battery power.
"We are afraid, the Moroccans are going to take us into the desert. Please tell the NGOs to come and look for us".