Spain deports African, Asian asylum seekers to Morocco amid rights group outcry
Rights groups said 16 people were sent back after asylum denials, and they warned the returns could expose non-Moroccan migrants to danger in Morocco.
- On October 26, Spain returned 16 migrants from Senegal, Nigeria, Yemen, Cameroon, and Bangladesh to Morocco after their asylum applications were denied in Ceuta, marking the first deportation from the enclave since a mass border crossing in July.
- Following a July surge where 80,000 people crossed into Ceuta in 48 hours, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez faces mounting pressure from Europe and a frustrated populace to resolve the crisis before elections on November 29.
- Amnesty International and other NGOs complained to Spain's ombudsman that some of the more than 13,000 people the government claims returned voluntarily to Morocco since mid-August were actually forced to leave, contradicting Spain's leftist values.
- Spain's Interior Ministry defended the deportations, stating they occur "with all the necessary safeguards." However, Amnesty researcher Virginia Alvarez countered that "Spain, despite its speeches in Europe, is not ensuring that human rights guarantees are met."
- Neither Morocco's Interior Ministry nor the International Organization for Migration responded to requests for comment on the deportations, leaving key questions unresolved as international rights groups continue scrutinizing Spain's asylum practices.
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Spain deports African, Asian asylum seekers to Morocco amid rights group outcry
Spain has returned to Morocco more than a dozen sub-Saharan African and Asian migrants who reached the Spanish enclave of Ceuta and were turned down for asylum, the first deportation of its kind from the enclave since a mass border crossing in July.
Prudence and common sense, these have been the qualities that led Sánchez to act as he did in the Ceuta crisis. Because, how is it that Morocco opens its borders and lets Spain pass, irregularly, or without papers, to about 72,000 people according to official data (80,000 according to data from the PP) as well, without more or more, like the one that does not want the thing, on 30 and 31 July 2026? And not only did they open the border to adults…
Among the people removed this Monday from CETI in a police operation were asylum seekers who had filed appeals against the unfavourable resolutions16 migrants have been trapped at the Tarajal border after their expulsion: “Morocco does not accept us and the Civil Guard does not want to see us” “If I stop answering, it is that I am in the hands of the police.” The message was sent this Monday by Ibrahim (fictional name), a young Senegalese who re…
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