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Morocco is seeing more migrants trying to get to Europe amid an intensifying clampdown on the Mediterranean Sea route between Libya and Italy, the kingdom’s migration and border surveillance director said Thursday.
Khalid Zerouali also told The Associated Press in an interview that Morocco is not interested in hosting a screening center where migrants would have their eligibility for asylum in Europe reviewed, an idea European Union leaders were discussing at a summit in Brussels.
“That’s not a solution,” Zerouali said of the so-called “regional disembarkation platforms” in Africa that EU leaders were considering. The centers would not stop Europe-bound migrants from entering Morocco, and EU financial aid to beef up border security would be more helpful, he said.
Migrants increasingly are using the North African kingdom as a jumping-off point to Spain, either crossing the Strait of Gibraltar from Tangiers on rickety boats or even jet skis, or climbing high fences to reach two Spanish enclaves in Morocco, Melilla and Ceuta.
Most have started out from countries in sub-Saharan Africa, entering Morocco along its 1,560 kilometer-long land border with Algeria. But North Africans and Moroccans also are among the multitudes hoping to make new lives in Europe.
“Seeing what’s happening in Libya and Africa, you have push factors in Africa and pull factors in Europe,” Zerouali said. “Today, Morocco is under a lot of pressure.”
He said his border patrols made 65,000 “interceptions” in 2017 and 25,000 have been stopped so far this year.
The border chief said Morocco spends up to 200 million euros to keep migrants from leaving when “normally we should be preventing them from entering.” The kingdom would like European help for what Zerouali suggested was its role as Europe’s immigration gatekeeper.
“We are a strategic partner to Europe … We think that what is happening today in the region, Morocco needs support so that we can cope with the increasing pressure,” Zerouali said.
The International Organization for Migration estimates the number of migrants in Morocco during the first six months of 2018 was about 35,500.
Claims of inhumane treatment by human rights groups abound, including violence at the borders and reports of unofficial detention centers. Zerouali denied them.
He said options for returning to their home countries safely are systematically presented to people who are caught entering Morocco illegally or departing in a way that shows a clear intention to enter Europe without authorization.
If they prefer to remain in Morocco, “we help them to go to other cities. That’s it.” He said that 27,000 migrants have applied to remain in Morocco.
Many are so determined to cross the sea, they will attempt to scale high fences even if border control officers are there to stop them, according to Zerouali.
“They do it in groups of 300 or 400 people, and members of (border) forces use only hands and not lethal weapons to stop them,” he said.
Zerouali complained about the failure of Algeria to help contain the passage of migrants through its border to Morocco.
Algeria and Morocco have had tense relations for decades over the disputed Western Sahara territory, which Morocco annexed in 1975, poisoning any cooperation.
