RABAT, Morocco, July 11 (UPI) -- For millions of would-be African immigrants, Morocco represents the last frontier, or the first serious hurdle between Africa and Europe, between prosperity and despair, life and death.
Tens of thousands of sub-Saharan Africans risk their lives everyday in efforts to first reach Morocco and from here, to their promised land --Europe -- hoping to escape poverty, wars, unemployment, disease and other ills that continue to plague many of the countries south of Morocco.
Hundreds, if not thousands of immigrants are picked up daily by coast guards and other security forces in Spain, Italy, France, Morocco and other countries along the Mediterranean basin, as they try to make their way to Europe -- and they believe, a better life for themselves and their families. Many, regretfully, die along the way, usually by drowning in the freezing waters of the Atlantic Ocean, or caught in sudden storms on the Mediterranean Sea.
The problem has swollen to such alarming proportions that simple policing of borders no longer offers a viable solution. "What is needed is a Marshall Plan for Africa," Mohammad Nabil Benabdallah, Morocco's Minister of Communication and spokesman for the Moroccan government told United Press International, Monday, on the first day of an international conference convened in the Moroccan capital of Rabat aimed at addressing these very issues. Benabdallah was referring to the post-World War II plan that helped much of war-devastated Europe get economically back on its feet.
Morocco came to realize that this problem of mass immigration was one that transcended its own borders, Benabdallah told UPI, and concerned not only the countries where the would-be illegals try to reach -- typically France, Spain and other parts of Europe, but also affected the countries from where the migrants originated. Often, these countries end up losing not just a menial work force, but in many instances, particularly in times of war and civil strife, it's the loss of the country's well-educated, or brain drain, that ends up hurting the most.
Morocco is greatly affected as it finds itself caught up between the two sides; Morocco is both a "producer" of immigrants and a host country from where sub-Saharan Africans arrive and depart on the next step of the journey, and usually the most perilous.
Tens of thousands of immigrants trek their way across the Sahara Desert and then prepare themselves to cross a swath of the Atlantic Ocean to reach the Spanish islands of the Canaries, off the coast of West Africa. They do this aboard rickety canoes or rafts, and many perish in the seas. Others try to scale the six-meter fence separating Melilla and Ceuta, two Spanish enclaves at the northern end of Morocco, hoping that when they land on the other side of the fence it would put them in Europe, and a step closer to continental Europe. Some die when they fall off the fence.
In 2005 alone, the Moroccan minister points out there have been 29,800 attempted clandestine immigrant crossings aborted, of which 21,894 were from sub-Saharan Africa. "They come from everywhere," says Benabdallah. "They come from Senegal, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Kenya, etc. They are helped along the way by criminal networks that have people helping them in all countries along the way."
While the number of Moroccan would-be illegal immigrants has dropped by 15.38 percent, said Benabdallah, when compared to the previous year, the number of illegal networks facilitating the migrants' illegal passage -- usually in exchange for hefty sums of money -- has grown; 484 networks were caught and dismantled in 2005, an increase of 15 percent over the previous year.
Morocco hopes the conference will yield concrete results in the form of massive help to the countries "producing" immigrants, giving them incentives to remain in their home countries, specifically, jobs.
The problem is further amplified by terrorist groups, such as al-Qaida, who make use of the waves of immigration moving into Europe from sub-Saharan Africa to move people into Europe.
During the first semester of this year Moroccan authorities have foiled 6,824 attempted clandestine immigration crossings, of which 4,200 originated from sub-Saharan Africa. One hundred and sixty networks were dismantled. Morocco's efforts in combating illegal immigration, along with that of Malawi, were "recognized in their dynamism in combating clandestine migration" in the 2006 U.S. State Department report citing them as the only Arab and African countries struggling with greater efficiency against the phenomenon of irregular migration.
Besides re-organizing its border protection and immigration services to better deal with the issues at hand, Morocco has fielded 11,000 security agents to monitor their borders, of which 4,500 have been allocated to monitor the coast.
But just as the United States has learned that no wall, fence, ditch, moat or security forces can prevent immigrants escaping hunger, political and social oppression, so to are the Moroccans and their European neighbors coming to the same realization. The only way to hold back the hordes of would-be migrants is to offer them incentives to stay where they are in the first place. Europe has to start thinking about job creation not only in the 25-member European Union, but in the impoverished sub-Sahara, too. Nothing else will ebb the unstoppable tide of immigration.
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