UN’s Annan Concerned by Growing Illegal Migration Across Western Sahara

2004-10-25

[AFP]

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has voiced concern over the growing number of illegal immigrants transiting Western Sahara en route to Europe. "The appearance in the heavily-mined buffer strip of clandestine migrants, groups of whom occasionally remain stranded there without proper means of sustainment for a long period of time, is a matter of growing concern. This is obviously part of a much broader phenomenon of trafficking in human beings through the region," Annan said last week in his latest report to the Security Council. The secretary general said he raised the problem because it is occuring the area of operations of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), which has neither the mandate nor the resources to deal with it.

Meanwhile, Algerian Foreign Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem came out Saturday (23 October) against a proposal by some EU countries to set up holding centres in North Africa to halt the flow of illegal immigrants to Europe. "Algeria cannot accept having a camp on a Maghreb country's territory where illegal immigrants will be cooped up, waiting for their papers to be processed in a European country," Belkhadem told APS. Algeria is the second North African country after Tunisia to reject proposals by Germany and others for centres to process the immigrants outside EU borders. (MAP, UN news, El Massa, APS, Reuters)