Group says Morocco rounded up immigrants

[struggle4progress]

DANIEL WOOLLS

Associated Press


MELILLA, Spain - Hundreds of sub-Saharan immigrants were rounded up by Moroccan security forces near the Spanish enclave Melilla and taken out to the desert near Algeria, a doctor with the human rights group Medecins Sans Frontieres said Friday.

The immigrants - among thousands who have trekked in recent years across Africa to get to Europe - were removed after nearly a dozen mass charges in recent weeks on the razor-wire fences that separate the Cueta and Melilla enclaves from Morocco. More than a dozen have been killed in the border rushes, including several shot by Moroccan forces Thursday. Hundreds more have been injured.

Javier Gabaldon told Spanish cable network CNN+ that workers with ONG Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders, found about 600 immigrants on Friday morning hundreds of miles from Melilla. <snip>

"These people need help. They need water, food. They need to be treated humanely, for the violence against them to cease," the Spanish doctor said. Instead, he said, the immigrants were "being abandoned to fate." <snip>

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/12847457.htm