Please send this protest-lette with Fax, Post or E-Mail to the embassy Maroccan in Berlin: Address: Botschaft des Königreichs Marokko, Niederwallstraße 39, 10117 Berlin, Telefon: +49 (0) 30 20 61 24 0, Fax: +49 (0) 30 20 61 24 20, E-mail: kontakt@botschaft-marokko.de

Name
Adress

To
the ambassador of the Kingdom Morocco in Berlin
Mr. Omar Zniber
Niederwallstraße 39
10117 Berlin

Place, Date

Arrests of Sub-Saharan migrants in Morocco

Dear Mr. Ambassador,

with great concern I learned from Moroccan and international media, that Moroccan security forces executed various raids against Sub-Saharan migrants in the North of Morocco and in other cities like Mekhnés and Rabat. For example: on July 27th 140 migrants were detained close to the city of Nador and some days before, on July 24th, nearly 300 migrants were detained in the neighbourhood Boukhalef in Tanger.

A group of unarmed migrants attempted to override the border fortifications to Melilla in the night of 23th to 24th of March and these desperate trys which are going on since years now were given as a reason for the actual police raids. During the raids hundreds of migrants – men, women and children – have been arrested, beaten and deported to the desert at the moroccan-algerian border. In Tanger a senegalese woman in presence of her two year old child was injured and humiliated by police forces and was deported half naked in a lorry to the border between Morocco and Algeria. Close to Nador a woman was forced to leave her seven months old child behind in the forest, another one had to leave one of her three year old twins behind. Those who managed to escape and to hide in the close by forests did not dare to go back into the cities for fear of new raids. Others are in hospitals in Nador, numerous severely injured and two dead persons are reported.

To my opinion it is alarming, that Moroccan media are justifying these inhuman raids by claiming, that the migrants were responsible for armed attacks against the fences of Melilla as they should have used sticks. It is highly deceptive to call these sticks arms (if ever they have been used) and to call the desperate try to overcome the fences violence. The violence was clearly committed by the Moroccan security forces as the above mentioned examples show. And it has to be mentioned here too, that a big part of the responsibility for the violence is the deeply inhuman policy of the European Union, to externalise and militarise its border regime. Last but not least this policy is responsible for the death of some ten thousands of refugees and migrants from both Sub-Saharan Africa and the Maghreb on their way to Europe since 1993.

Basically I would like to ask you, to advocate for an immediate stop of the ongoing raids, arrests and deportations to the moroccan-algerian border. It is also of great importance, that the responsible persons for the recent cases of death are brought to justice. Moreover all wounded migrants should have the possibility of medical treatment in hospitals without being in fear of being arrested.

Finally I would like to point out, that I explicitly support all corresponding demands of Moroccan human rights organisations.

Yours sincerely,