Illegal immigrants force their way into Spanish ruled Mellilia

A vehicle transporting would-be illegal immigrants rushed on early Saturday through the Moroccan and Spanish check-points at the Beni Nsar border, north-east Morocco, forcing its way into Mellilia, a Moroccan northern town still under Spanish rule.

Spanish sources said the Mellilia registered Renault 25 was found later abandoned in the Spanish presidio, north of the town of Nador.

The sources said they do not know how many passengers were in the car, though they said the people could be of Asian origin.

The same day, in Las Palmas Canary island, authorities arrested 34 sub-Saharan illegal immigrants who landed from a patera, or makeshift boat, at a beach of Mogan, south of the island, according to the Red Cross.

The patera was the eighth intercepted in the Canary Islands since the beginning of the new year: on Thursday, 38 illegal immigrants were rescued off Fuerteventura after their patera engine broke down were on the verge of sinking. 26 others were arrested at their landing in Tenerife.

Morocco is used as a transit country by thousands of sub-Saharan nationals, but also by people coming from as far as India, trying to cross to Spain, either through the strait of Gibraltar or to the Canary Islands, farther south in the Atlantic Ocean.

Crossing attempts to Spain declined since in 2004, in part due to the efficient electronic detection of illegal immigrants boats by the SIVE surveillance system, which can track down 99 of the attempts.

Morocco and Spain conduct regular joint patrols to monitor illegal migration movements off Spanish coasts. They started the operations in July 2004 between Morocco's southern shores and Spain's Canary Islands. The joint patrols were later on extended to the Mediterranean.

Tags: Morocco, Fès, Maghreb, news