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Immigrants face a formidable barrier

Giles Tremlett— © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

Africans die as they seek better life in Europe

MELILLA: Herve crouched low as he ran through the pine trees and thyme bushes on the hillside above the north African Spanish enclave of Melilla.

"The Moroccan police are just over there," the young Malian said, pointing through the trees to a road where some 150 paramilitary policemen were preparing to hunt through the forest for immigrants like him. "I have to go and warn my friends. Do you have any food? We haven't eaten for two days."

Herve and his group of five friends from countries many hundreds of km to the south had come in the hope of emulating what hundreds of young sub-Saharan Africans have managed to do this week. They were gathering courage to jump across one of only two land frontiers between Africa and Europe.

The frontier — known as Marihouari to Moroccans and Rostrogordo to Spaniards — is a formidable barrier. A 12-km perimeter is protected by two three-metre-high razor-wire fences.

Trigger happy guards

They are watched over from one side by trigger-happy Moroccan troops, who have shown this week they are prepared to kill as they are called on to help keep Africans off European soil. As of this week, the other side is patrolled by the Spanish Legion. The two fences are separated by a 15-foot-wide tarmac path lined with watchtowers, video cameras and pressure sensors. They also separate the hunger and misery of Africa from the wealth and abundance of Europe.

Melilla, and Spain's other north African enclave along the coast at Ceuta, trace their Spanish pasts to the 15th century. Melilla's border was originally defined as the area reached by a cannonball fired from the city castle.

Anyone who has made it from south of the Sahara desert up to the Rostrogordo forest knows that getting across the two fences alive will bring a remarkable change to their lives. "In Africa there is no future for young people,' says 24-year-old Bubaka from Guinea-Bissau, who stormed the fence with 500 other persons one night last week. "I thought I was going to die getting across, but I just prayed to God. Now I am here, and happy."

Bubaka's fear is entirely reasonable. Five immigrants were killed, apparently by Moroccan police bullets, when 600 persons equipped with home-made ladders stormed the fences at Ceuta on Thursday. Up to six more are believed to have been killed trying to get into Melilla over the past month. Morocco has been under intense pressure from Spain to stop migrants massing and rushing the border fences.

"That means the task of keeping the African immigrants out of Europe is, in effect, being sub-contracted to people who are ready to kill on our behalf," says Jose Palazon of immigration charity in Melilla.

Hunger, suffering

More than 200 people got across the fences with Bubaka. A further 500 stormed Melilla and Ceuta in two other mass assaults this week.

A camp of tents has been erected in Melilla to accommodate this week's deluge of immigrants. The residents tell stories of hunger, suffering and the death of friends during arduous treks across the African continent that last anything from a year to three years. One witness to events of the past week is a German officer in Melilla as part of an exchange programme. He found the barrier between Africa and Europe familiar. "It looks a lot like the old fence that separated East Germany from West Germany," he says. "But here there are no landmines."

A month ago, he might have added that those who jumped the fence did not run the risk of being shot. But that, as the five bodies delivered to morgues in Ceuta and the Moroccan city of Tetouan this week testify, is no longer true.

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