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24 African refugees drowned
04/07/2006 12:57 - (SA)
Madrid - At least 21 African would-be immigrants have drowned off Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara while attempting to reach Spain's Canary Islands, said reports on Tuesday.
Earlier, reports had put the number of victims at 18.
Three migrants were also reported to have been killed while attempting to climb over a border fence into the Spanish enclave of Melilla on the Moroccan coast, up from two fatalities reported earlier.
According to reports, Moroccan police on Monday retrieved 21 bodies from the sea west of the Saharawi capital, Laayoun.
According to some of the seven survivors, the real number of victims was thought to be higher, as a total of 37 people were travelling on the boat, which was shipwrecked.
Seven migrants injured
Meanwhile, three Africans were killed and seven injured on Monday after up to 70 migrants attempted to scale a border fence surrounding Melilla.
One immigrant died on the Spanish side of the border. It was not clear whether he had fallen off the six-metre fence or been fired at by Moroccan police.
Moroccan official sources were quoted as saying that seven migrants were injured by the barbed wire. They added that one of the victims had died on the way to a hospital in Nador.
Another immigrant was also reported to have died on the Moroccan side. Morocco denied claims by some migrants that they had been shot at.
Four immigrants managed to get through to Melilla. One of them was taken to hospital with serious injuries, reportedly from barbed wire, but his condition was said to be improving.
14 immigrants killed
Three others, who were from Cameroon and Burkina Faso, were detained unharmed. The incidents came just as Morocco was preparing to host a Euro-African conference on immigration on July 10 and 11.
The attempt to storm Melilla was the first significant push since September and October, when thousands of Africans made co-ordinated assaults on the border fence.
At least 14 immigrants were killed while trying to enter Spain through Melilla and the enclave of Ceuta further west last year.
Morocco stepped up the arrests of migrants under European pressure and transported more than 1 000 of them to the desert, where some of them were abandoned to their fate.
The Melilla fence was reinforced and its height doubled to six metres.
The measures had prompted most illegals to take an alternative route from the West African coast to the Canary Islands, which had received about 10 000 Africans this year.
Hundreds had drowned during the sea crossing of up to 1 200km.
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