|
Immigrants to be sent back home
10/10/2005 14:12 - (SA)
|
|
|
 |
|
| Immigrants from Mali in a detention camp cue to be transferred to Udja, near of Morocco, to board a plane that will take them to Mali. (Samuel Aranda, AFP) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Oujda - Morocco was on Monday to start airlifting home more than 1 000 migrants who had been trying to reach Europe via the North African country, an interior ministry source said.
"The flights are to begin during the morning from Oudja airport (close to the Algerian border in northeastern Morocco)," the source said, adding that the migrants concerned were from the West African states of Senegal and Mali.
The evacuation was to begin at around 10:00, said Senegal's ambassador to Morocco, Ibou Ndiaye.
The evacuation concerned migrants who were found stranded in a desert region near the Algerian border as well as others who were camped out in woods near the Spanish enclave of Melilla and who agreed to be repatriated, he said.
Hundreds of migrants were rounded up by Moroccan authorities and driven into a desert region near the Algerian border after waves of migrants tried to storm the barriers at the enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta on Morocco's northern coast.
They said they were stranded without food or water for several days, until the Moroccan authorities - compelled to act under strong international criticism - picked them up and began the process of repatriating them.
|
