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Probe border deaths - UN
12/10/2005 15:22 - (SA)
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| A group of illegal immigrants from Senegal walk to Oujda, Morocco. (Remy de la Mauviniere, AP) |
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Geneva - A United Nations human rights expert on Wednesday called for a transparent and independent investigation into the deaths of 11 Africans as they tried to cross the borders between Morocco and the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla.
The use of firearms by border guards is only permitted under international law if it is for self-defence or to protect others from death or serious injury, said Jorge Bustamante, the UN expert on the human rights of migrants.
On September 29, five immigrants were shot dead while trying to get into Ceuta and six more died in clashes with Moroccan security forces at the Melilla border last week.
Bustamante also urged Morocco's government - which has been sending African immigrants home by the hundreds on special flights in a bid to stop the continent's poor from using their nation as a stepping stone to a hoped-for better life in Europe - to halt the deportations.
"They are being deported and left on the southern border in the Sahara desert without water or food," Bustamente said. "Collective deportations in these conditions endanger the right to life."
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