Over 130 immigrants arrested

2005-10-05 09:05

Rabat - A total of 136 would-be-immigrants, mostly sub-Saharan Africans, were arrested in Morocco on Tuesday while trying to break into the Spanish enclave of Melilla, the Moroccan Map news agency reported.

Those arrested - including 13 women and two Algerians - were picked up in the Moroccan town of Nador, next to Melilla.

The number of such mass assaults has increased in recent months by people who have made an arduous trek to Morocco on the Mediterranean from African countries further south in the hope of escaping poverty and starting new lives in Europe.

The latest invasions of Melilla have prompted Spain's interior minister to announce reinforcements of the borders.

Over 6 000 people have been arrested in the area so far this year.

Immigrant support groups say action by Moroccan security forces is causing more immigrants to try to cross.

"Faced with growing arrests, the illegals have two possibilities: either to try to cross into Spain whatever it costs, or to be expelled from Morocco. They chose to charge," said Khalid Jemmah, president of the association of families and friends of illegal immigration, on Monday.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said last week he was confident that the series of mass invasions were "occasional" and would end once the border reinforcements were completed.

However local officials have expressed concern at the increasing degree of organisation of the raids, which they said suggested that trained former fighters from various African conflicts were involved.

Last Tuesday, about 300 illegal immigrants broke into Melilla in two mass stormings of the barrier, involving about 1 000 people.

In August three people died in the frontier zone of Melilla in controversial circumstances after another mass storming of the border.

- AFP