To investigate on the death of migrants in South European border

Testimonies from the survivors and from different social Moroccan organizations confirm that the nights of the 28th and 29th of April, a boat with more than seventy people that tried to reach the Spanish coast was hit by security Moroccan forces. At least 36 people drown, babies included. A few months before a complaint for the death of a Senegalese citizen thrown to the sea by the civil guard had arrived.

In the frame of the International Committee of the III WSFM (http://www.fsmm2008.org/), the organizations that sign below express their deeply and categorical reject to this kind of actuations from the authorities of any country. No entry attempt to European territory can justify putting life into risk.

European governments, among which and in an emphasized position placed the Spanish government, have cooperation agreements with Morocco on migratory policies, in that way they are all, African and European governments, responsible of demanding and making the governments of that African country carry out the most scrupulous respect of the immigrants’ human rights, whose unique “crime” is to seek for a more decent life than the one that the global economic system allows them in their place of origin. We demand to Spanish and Moroccan governments to make an exhaustive investigation of the complaints exposed, to refine responsibilities involved in the case, and to take the needed measures to make this event never happen again.

The governments from the European Union countries, in an incoherent and hypocrite way with the democratic values they presume to defend, have “subengaged” borders’ control with countries that violate human rights. In that way they drop out the values from their Constitutions. Governments that base their migratory politics in prolonging the internment period of the immigrants in irregular situation, that have not commit any crime and that can be locked, if the European directive approves it, till 18 months. Meanwhile migration remains a cause that European Union avoids to be responsabilized on. They keep on applying on economic politics that destroy economic and social structures from their countries of origin and that force their populations to emigrate as the unique option to live a decent life.

Organizations signing :

Grito dos Excluidos (de América Latina y el Caribe) ; Serviço Pastoral dos Migrantes de Brasil ; Asswociation Internationale Scalabriniénne au Service des Migrants (AISSMI) ; Plan Migración, comunicación y desarrollo. ALER-Red Con Voz ; Círculo de Tunecinos de Marsella y Carta Mundial de los Migrantes ; Migrant Forum in Asia ; Alianza Nacional de Comunidades Latinoamericanas y Caribeñas (NALACC) ; Reseau Africain Sur L’Etude des Migrations (RAEM), de Senegal ;. Migreurop ; Palestinian Nacional Council ; Red Internacional de Migración y Desarrollo ; Groupe Antiraciste d’accompagnement et de Défense des Étrangers et Migrants (GADEM), de Marruecos ; Centre d’Etudes Pour l’Action Sociale (CEPAS), República Democrática del Congo ; Plataforma Interamericana de derechos humanos, democracia y desarrollo ; Migración, Refugio y Desplazamiento (MIREDES) ; AFESIP ; Comisión Española de Ayuda al Refugiado (CEAR) ; Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos de Andalucía (APDHA) ; Andalucía Acoge ; Fundación Sur ; IEPALA ; FEDELATINA ; Asociación Rumiñahui ; Attac ; USO ; Red Europea Contra el Racismo-España (ENAR) ; Federación de Mujeres Progresistas ; Asociación de Chilenos en España (ACHES) ; Liberación-Amauta (Acción en Red) ; Conadee ; Coordinadora de Inmigrantes de Málaga ; Plataforma Estatal de Organizaciones de Mujeres Para la Abolición de la Prostitución ; AFESIP ; Federación Estatal de Refugiados e Inmigrantes en España (FERINE) ; Fundación CEAR ; Sentido Sur ; Ayuntamiento de Rivas ; MIGREUROP

For more information : Press Office III FSMM : + 34 695481176 - +34 915980535