The Desperation of Migrants

"It seems like a movie but it is real life. It sometimes feels like the weight of all of Europe is on our shoulders."
Sub-Lt. Juan Antonio Martin Rivera, Spanish Guardia, Melilla, Spain

"[The influx of refugees is] like having a patient with terminal cancer and all we can do is apply a Band-Aid ... The people who come here are not immigrants. They are victims."
"It has become a trade [human trafficking] where people get very rich."
Col. Ambrosio Villasenor, commander, Guardia, Melilla

"Most of the women have been raped along the way and exchanged like property The women have had no control over their own bodies or of the disease they may carry. All the resulting psychological problems create a barrier and we cannot really see inside."
"[The ACOGE charity helps the women in] contact with people of other cultures. Otherwise they don't mix. They stay within their own small cultural groups."
Isabel Torrente, humanitarian worker, ACOGE charity

The image of two golfers playing as migrants scale a fence went viral late last year / IRN, Jose Palazon

According to newly released figures in a report by the United Nations, some 60-million people have fled war or poverty in 2014. Almost four million of those who have been displaced to become desperate refugees are Syrians. Many of the refugees look for haven in Europe. Most of them arrive in Europe through the Italian and Greek archipelagos, by a sea voyage in unreliable vessels, through the questionable aid of human smugglers becoming wealthy on the passage funding they demand.

Alternate routes other than travelling by sea are being used as well; long, arduous and dangerous detours west to Melilla, a small Spanish enclave bordering North Africa's Mediterranean coast. Some travel through Lebanon, Algeria, Morocco and finally reach Melilla, for to them the overland voyage "seems safer" than resigning themselves to the rigours and dangers of a sea voyage in rickety boats at the mercy of unscrupulous traffickers.

Those refugees who make it through to Melilla often carry "rented" Moroccan passports; they meld among the 35,000 Moroccans who make the crossing daily into Mellila to work and to shop. Others travel even longer distances than from the Middle East, starting out in Africa. Coming, for example from Guinea, refugees travel through Mali Burkina Faso, Niger, Algeria and Morocco, and baksheesh is extremely useful on those travels.

Roughly 20,000 Africans attempted the jump into Melilla in 2014. Moroccan authorities on one side and Spanish Guardia Civil on the other ensured that about ten percent only managed to succeed, reaching the city. Sometimes as many as 500 men storm the high wire fences in nighttime assaults. The Guardia must ensure the migrants do not get over the fences. But if they do, they must be treated well, and ensured humanitarian aid once they reach Melilla with its 80,000 residents supported by Madrid.

Sub-Saharan migrants scale a metallic fence that divides Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Melilla   Photo: Santi Palacios/AP

Moroccan and Spanish mafias traffic in humans, leaping at the opportunity to profit from human misery. And there is human misery in abundance, particularly so for the women and the children refugees. Even greater numbers of Africans are gathering in Morocco to begin pushing on toward Melilla. There seems to be no end in sight, with conflicts, oppression, poverty and criminal threats endangering the lives of Africans and Middle Easterners, all fearful for their existence and anxious to escape.