Refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants
Thousands of people suspected of being irregular migrants were arrested and collectively expelled, mostly without any consideration of their protection needs and their right under Moroccan law to contest the decision to deport them or examine the grounds on which it was made. The authorities said they prevented 10,235 immigration attempts between January and November. Some migrants were reported to have been subjected to excessive force and other ill-treatment at the time of arrest or during their detention or expulsion; some were reported to have been dumped at the border with Algeria or Mauritania without adequate food and water.
■ At least 28 migrants, including four children, drowned in the sea off Al Hoceima on 28 April. Survivors alleged that Moroccan officials who intercepted their inflatable boat punctured and shook it when the migrants refused to stop. The authorities denied that their officials were responsible but did not carry out an investigation. The survivors were transported to the city of Oujda in eastern Morocco and left at the frontier with Algeria.
Polisario camps
Little independent information was available about conditions in the refugee camps run by the Polisario Front in Algeria. No steps were known to have been taken to address the impunity of those accused of committing human rights abuses in the camps in the 1970s and 1980s.
Thousands of people suspected of being irregular migrants were arrested and collectively expelled, mostly without any consideration of their protection needs and their right under Moroccan law to contest the decision to deport them or examine the grounds on which it was made. The authorities said they prevented 10,235 immigration attempts between January and November. Some migrants were reported to have been subjected to excessive force and other ill-treatment at the time of arrest or during their detention or expulsion; some were reported to have been dumped at the border with Algeria or Mauritania without adequate food and water.
■ At least 28 migrants, including four children, drowned in the sea off Al Hoceima on 28 April. Survivors alleged that Moroccan officials who intercepted their inflatable boat punctured and shook it when the migrants refused to stop. The authorities denied that their officials were responsible but did not carry out an investigation. The survivors were transported to the city of Oujda in eastern Morocco and left at the frontier with Algeria.
Polisario camps
Little independent information was available about conditions in the refugee camps run by the Polisario Front in Algeria. No steps were known to have been taken to address the impunity of those accused of committing human rights abuses in the camps in the 1970s and 1980s.
