The Interior Ministry wants to expel ten of the Sahrawi citizens detained for several weeks at Barajas airport, where they have requested asylum, alleging the repression they are suffering in the occupied territories of Western Sahara. “10 will be returned, in accordance with the legislation,” confirmed sources from the department headed by Fernando Grande-Marlaska, questioned by this media outlet about the Sahrawi activists, some of whom began a hunger strike this weekend.
For weeks, several Sahrawi activists have been detained at Barajas airport in fear of being expelled to Morocco, despite having told the authorities that they were fleeing the repressive situation they are experiencing in the occupied territories of Western Sahara. The Interior confirms that there are currently 57 citizens with Moroccan passports (the Interior does not distinguish between those who have declared themselves Sahrawi). According to the information gathered, ten of them have started a hunger strike, but only five refused breakfast this morning at the airport facilities.
After refusing their asylum application, the Interior Ministry initiated the expulsion procedure for 10 of them. “They do not meet the entry requirements and are being sent back,” the same sources add. Furthermore, the defense of the protection seekers claims that not all procedural guarantees are respected and denounces that the ministry responds to the requests in a “generic” manner with similar arguments.
Fatma Fadel, a lawyer for some of the detained Sahrawi activists, puts the number of young people from the occupied Sahara who began a hunger strike 48 hours ago at 28, although she adds that there are about a dozen more Sahrawis who are in the same situation but have not started the protest. “They are desperate and in a state of disbelief. They do not understand anything because they know that human rights are not respected in Morocco, but they believe that they are in Spain. However, no one has respected the asylum procedure,” says the lawyer, reached by phone from the airport.
As Fadel explains, the Sahrawis she defends have requested asylum and, at the same time, have requested statelessness, that is, the status that those without nationality can adhere to and that would require their protection. “Upon their arrival, even though they had a Moroccan passport, they declared that they were not Moroccan, but Sahrawi. But the whole response was a denial and we are trying to appeal,” criticizes the lawyer. “These are massive denials, without justification, the evidence provided has not been evaluated,” he adds.
The lawyer also denounced the “inhumane conditions” that the Sahrawis are suffering in the airport’s asylum rooms. According to him, some of them have bedbug bites and complain of not receiving enough food.
This Sunday, about twenty protesters gathered at Barajas airport to demand the release of detained asylum seekers. Many of them were relatives of the detained people and asked that international protection be granted to their loved ones.
According to their relatives, the Sahrawis who are waiting for the Government’s resolution are “political prisoners” persecuted by Morocco for their activism in favor of the determination of Western Sahara.
Podemos MP Ione Belarra tried, unsuccessfully, to visit the unacceptable room in Barajas to see for himself the situation of the Sahrawi asylum seekers. At the airport, Belarra expressed his concern about the situation of the activists and asked that their request for protection be studied. “The situation of the other 30 Sahrawi activists who have been detained for several days is unbearable. Specifically, he denounces the situation of a one-and-a-half-year-old girl who has not received medical care and her mother who underwent an abortion in recent days. It is a democratic shame that these people do not receive medical assistance,” the MP said.
“I am here to denounce the hypocrisy of the government of Pedro Sánchez, which sent an armed forces plane to pick up a violent and dangerous far-right activist in Venezuela and is unable to respond to the asylum requests of Sahrawi activists whose lives are in danger,” he stressed. “No one denounces that Morocco is a dictatorship, no one denounces the violations of human rights and this has a name: hypocrisy.”
