Death at the gates of Europe: refugees drown off the Moroccan coast trying to reach Spain
The following, by Fahamu intern Rebecka Jonsson, is a summary of a blog post by Chabaka, a network of NGOs in north Morocco dedicated to issues such as immigration and human rights, among others. The original post, in French, was published on 25 December 2011 and can be found here.
On 21 December 2011, Marcel Amiyeto, spokesman for the Refugee Collective in Morocco, made an announcement titled: ‘Once more, deaths at the gates of Europe’. The statement was made in reference to the fact that more than twenty people were found dead on the coast of Morocco between 1–2 December 2011, after the sinking of a boat carrying around 60 people trying to reach Europe through Spain. Those who survived said that the boat sank between 2–3 am. This was after many failed attempts to contact the Moroccan maritime emergency services, who arrived almost 24 hours later claiming they did not come sooner because they thought a nearby Spanish ship was coming to the rescue. Among the deceased were Mrs Hortense Onina (approximately 40 years old), a mother of four originally from the Republic of Congo-Brazaville, and two of her children, Séphora (18), and Meyer (15). The family had been granted refugee status by the UNHCR Morocco office in 2006.
In October 2011, a survey was conducted on the situation of migrants and refugees in North Morocco. The survey found that a small number of people were hiding in the forest, in the Gourougou mountain in Nador; these people, mainly single mothers, had decided to go and live in the mountains after living in Rabat for years. They were waiting for the right moment to make their way across into Spain. Part of the report included an interview with Mrs Onina, an example of one of the mothers hiding among the trees. Her testimony explains how even as a recognised refugee, UNHCR did not give her enough monthly allowance for food, let alone rent to live somewhere with her children. UNHCR also rejected her plea to be resettled in France, even though this would constitute family reunification, since her husband had been living there with her other two children for some time. Mrs Onina found that her only option was to wait in the forest until her chance came to cross over to Spain.
Mr Amiyeto condemned the ‘silent complicity’ of the UNCHR Morocco office in the affair, calling for ‘an investigation that will shed light on the causes of refugee departures in which they risk their lives’.
